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1. January 2011
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Normal People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Inexperience, and Emotional Intensity
Identity, Insecurity, and Social Status
Miscommunication and Assumptions
Money, Class, and Entitlement
Summary
Analysis
Marianne prepares to go out. As she puts on some lip balm, her brother, Alan, approaches and asks where she’s going. He becomes aggressive in his questioning, suspicious of her because he knows she has no friends and therefore doesn’t usually have anywhere to go. She tries to ignore him, smiling when she can, but then he asks if she’s happy that she has no friends. Just as she tries to leave, he grabs her arm and yanks her backward. Letting go, he tells her not to talk to their mother about how he grabbed her. She says she won’t and then slips outside.
It becomes clear at the beginning of this chapter that Marianne’s brother, Alan, is abusive toward her. Even though her family is wealthy, then, it’s obvious that her home life is difficult and painful. What’s more, because of Alan’s aggression, she has to face animosity and hostility not just in school, but also in the privacy of her own home. She’s therefore forced to lead a very lonely, isolated life in which she has nobody to turn to for support.
Themes
As she walks outside, Marianne thinks about a soccer game the entire school was forced to attend the previous term. She doesn’t care about that sort of thing, but it was a beautiful day and she found herself watching Connell on the field—she loved studying him from a distance and fantasized about telling him later that she was watching him and, in doing so, prompting him to call her “weird.” She also suddenly yearned to see him having sex. It didn’t have to be with her, she just wanted to watch him, though she knew that thinking this way is why people think she’s odd.
Unlike Connell, Marianne isn’t confused about her feelings. Rather, she knows she has romantic feelings for him and isn’t afraid to admit this to herself. However, the idea of actually being with him in a sexual way seems like such a remote possibility that she doesn’t even fantasize about having sex with him, instead simply thinking about how pleasant it would be for her to see him have sex. Although she’s honest with herself about how she feels, then, her attraction to Connell still feels distant and removed from her actual life. Furthermore, her sense that she’s “weird” for thinking about him in this way suggests that she has internalized the mean things other people say about her, letting their insults degrade her self-esteem.
Themes
Everyone around Marianne seems to like school, but she hates it. She doesn’t feel like school is her real life, though she doesn’t know what “real life” will feel like, either—whenever it starts happening, she reasons, she won’t have to keep fantasizing about what it’s like. To her, school seems boring, and it’s especially ridiculous that she has to dress in a uniform and follow ridiculous rules. Once, her history teacher told her to pay attention, saying that she couldn’t learn while staring out the window, and she said, “Don’t delude yourself, I have nothing to learn from you.”
Compared to Connell, Marianne is surprisingly willing to speak her mind. It’s possible that she’s combative in class because she has nothing to lose—everyone in her secondary school (which is what Irish people call high school) already dislikes her. Plus, her only social capital is that she’s incredibly smart, so she leans into that identity by suggesting that her history teacher isn’t intelligent enough to teach her anything.
Themes
Ever since Marianne told Connell that she liked him, he has been coming to the house more often, arriving early to pick up Lorraine. They usually talk about books and joke with each other, though he’s still pretty shy. One day, Connell said he liked hearing her opinions, and when she suggested that he probably heard enough of them in school, he said that she acts differently when she’s not in school. But she doesn’t feel like she has access to multiple identities. She has tried to be a different person before, but it never works. If she’s any different in front of Connell, it’s just because of their relational dynamic.
Connell and Marianne’s relationship gets a bit more serious after she tells him that she likes him. Although he hasn’t articulated that he, too, is fond of her, his actions make it quite clear that he wants to be around her as much as possible—except, of course, when they’re in school. When he tells her that she acts differently in school, it’s possible that he’s really just trying to convince himself that she’s different, which might make him feel better about ignoring her in public.
Themes
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Once, Marianne asked Connell about his friends. They don’t like talking about things like literature, but that doesn’t bother him. Instead, they boast about having sex, and though Connell doesn’t particularly like that, he’s able to overlook it. Connell then changed the subject by asking Marianne what she meant the other day when she said that she liked him—did she mean as a friend or as something more? Something more, she told him. He then admitted to not knowing how he should feel. If anything happened between them, it might be awkward at school. But Marianne assured him nobody would find out, at which point he looked up at her and they kissed.
Connell seems relatively unbothered that he has trouble relating to the people he hangs out with at school, probably because he prioritizes popularity over all else. As a result, he’s willing to sacrifice things like emotional connection. At the same time, though, he clearly yearns for genuine connection, which is why can’t help himself from seeking it out with Marianne, despite his misgivings about becoming romantically involved with the least popular girl in school. When Marianne assures him that she won’t tell anyone at school about their relationship, he finally gives into his emotions, ignoring how unfair and hurtful it is of him to ask her to stay quiet simply because she might tarnish his reputation.
Themes
It was Marianne’s first kiss. She laughed, and when Connell realized she wasn’t laughing at him, he did too. Before leaving, he asked her not to tell anyone, and she said she wouldn’t. When she watched him in class the next day, it was like nothing had happened at all—he never glanced her way.
It's easy enough for Marianne to agree not to tell anyone about kissing Connell, but it’s harder (emotionally speaking) for her to watch him pretend like he doesn’t even know her in school. By completely ignoring her in public, he emphasizes his unwillingness to risk his reputation by openly dating her—something that is obviously hurtful, no matter how much Marianne is willing to degrade her sense of self-worth for his benefit.
Themes
Connell didn’t come to Marianne’s house for several days after they kissed. When he finally arrived early to pick up Lorraine one day, Marianne let him in and then went upstairs, too embarrassed to face him. But then he knocked on her door. He was worried she might be mad at him, but she wasn’t. They kissed again. He slid his hand under her shirt and then under her bra. She asked if they could get naked, but he stopped and said they couldn’t: his mother was just downstairs.
The pause in Marianne and Connell’s secret relationship hints at Connell’s continued feeling of emotional confusion surrounding their connection. Although it’s clear that he wants to be with her in a romantic way, he seems to have kept himself from going to her house for a few days after actually kissing her, most likely because he thinks he shouldn’t be sneaking around with the most unpopular girl in school. But his feelings for Marianne beat out his reservations, suggesting that their connection is too strong to ignore.
Themes
Now, after having escaped Alan and his domineering ways, Marianne arrives at Connell’s house. It’s small and has a yard made of concrete. Her legs and underarms are smooth, and she’s wearing deodorant. When he lets her inside, he looks around to make sure nobody has seen them.
The chapter began with Marianne setting out for an unknown destination, and then it provided some backstory. Now, the chapter ends by picking up the narrative thread, as readers learn that Marianne is on her way to Connell’s house. Most of the chapters in Normal People are arranged in this fashion, which makes it possible for the novel to maintain the urgency of the present action while also adding the depth and nuance that comes along with the passage of time. On another note, the fact that Marianne’s legs are smooth suggests that the petty rumors about her in school—like the one claiming that she doesn’t shave her legs—are untrue. Alternatively, it’s possible that this is the first time she has shaved her legs, perhaps because it’s the first time she has become physically intimate with someone (though it seems unlikely that Connell would care either way).
Themes
