Summary
Normal People begins with Connell, a high school student, going to pick up his mother Lorraine from her job cleaning houses. She is working at a grand mansion, and Connell dreads entering the house because one of its inhabitants is his classmate Marianne. Today, while Lorraine finishes a few tasks, Connell and Marianne chat awkwardly. Marianne is disarmingly blunt, interrogating Connell about his grades and the teacher who seems to have a crush on him. Connell is uncomfortable with Marianne. She is an excellent student but friendless at school, and doesn't dress or present herself the way others in their class do. Connell is popular, well-liked, and athletic. He's fascinated and a little afraid of Marianne, and suspects that their classmates, who act as if they find her merely amusing or weird, are equally transfixed by her. Marianne says, in conversation, that she "likes" Connell, making him feel overwhelmed. Then Lorraine enters the room, ready to go. Connell's mother scolds him in the car for being insufficiently kind to Marianne.
The narrative skips ahead a few weeks, into Marianne's point of view. Since that first conversation with Connell, the two teenagers have talked frequently. Connell often comes early to pick up his mom, so they discuss books and argue about their classmates and teachers. Connell, in particular, is fickle and awkward, yet keeps finding ways to talk with Marianne. One day he asks Marianne whether her comment about "liking" him was purely platonic. She says no. He says that he is confused by his own feelings, and mentions that any romance between them would cause awkwardness at school. Marianne replies that their classmates need not find out about it, and Connell kisses her. Marianne, who has never kissed anyone, is thrilled—but they don't interact at school for the rest of the week. Marianne hides in her room the next time Connell comes over to get Lorraine. He finds her and asks if she's upset, and she says no. They kiss again, but Connell cuts the encounter off because his mother is downstairs. Now, Marianne is leaving her house to walk to Connell's, but she's stopped by her brother Alan. Alan cruelly questions her about where she's going, knowing that she doesn't have friends to visit. He even grabs her threateningly, though she manages to get away. While walking, she reminisces about the time that her whole class was required to watch the school football team's championship game. She remembers watching Connell, and thinking that he was so beautiful that she wanted to watch him have sex, though not necessarily with her. She thinks about how much she hates school, with its uninteresting lessons and controlling, arbitrary rules, but reflects that Connell always accepts her feelings. Connell's house is small and modest, nothing like her own grand home.
Skipping another month, we find Connell and Marianne lying in Connell's bed after having sex. At this point, they have sex regularly, though in secret. The two are working on college applications. Marianne wants to study History and Politics at Trinity College in Dublin. Connell feels floundering and uncertain, but Marianne encourages him to study English, which he seems to have a passion for. Connell reflects on their relationship. They're extremely, if unexpectedly, attracted to one another. Connell has been involved with several girls at school but always feels disgusted and upset when he has sex, except with Marianne. He especially appreciates the fact that Marianne, unlike other girls at school, won't brag about their relationship or make fun of him to others. Connell recalls that, after the first time he had sex with Marianne, his mother made fun of him, realizing that he'd had a girl over. However, Lorraine has no idea that Connell's new fling is with Marianne. Neither does Connell's friend Rob, who plies him with questions about Marianne, knowing that Connell's mother cleans Marianne's home. Connell avoids answering, and, distressed by this web of lies, resolves to break things off with Marianne. He can't bring himself to do so, though, because, for reasons he doesn't understand, he's drawn to her.
Marianne is drawn to him too, confessing how much she likes him one day after they have sex. He is plagued by his own feelings for Marianne, and even tries to write down his thoughts to help make sense of them. The scene turns back to Marianne and Connell's conversation about college. She tells him to apply to Trinity, and he reflects that he has two paths before him: a life similar to the one he lives now at a college closer to home, or a new, foreign, more privileged life in Dublin. He jokes that Marianne would pretend not to know him if they went to college together, and she denies this (ironically, since Connell pretends not to know Marianne at school). He tells her that he'll apply for English at Trinity, just as she's told him to do.
A few weeks later, Marianne attends a school function at a nightclub, not because she wants to but because she is required to help sell raffle tickets there. She awkwardly chats with some of the popular girls, including Rachel, who goes out of her way to be rude, and Rachel's kinder friend Karen. Marianne texts Connell to ask when he and his friends will arrive, and she momentarily fantasizes about telling Rachel and Karen they're texting. When they arrive, Connell doesn't talk to Marianne, but he stares at her—she has dressed up and put on makeup. The narrative then flashes back to a recent day when Connell drove Marianne to a grand but abandoned home—a favorite spot for high school students to drink. They have a frank but fractured conversation: Connell points out that the abandoned house is much bigger than his own. Marianne becomes upset about the secrecy of their relationship, and about Connell's friends, who treat her unkindly. Connell tells her that he would miss her if she no longer wanted to be with him. The narrative flashes forward again to the nightclub, where Connell and his friends have arrived. Karen and Marianne dance together, and Karen points out that Connell is staring at Marianne.
However, Marianne's fun is cut short when an older boy—a friend of some of Connell's friends—mocks her and squeezes her breast against her will. She runs into another room. Connell, Karen, Rachel, and Connell's friend Eric follow her, and while Karen comforts her, Rachel and Eric are unsympathetic. Connell tells Rachel and Eric off, and then drives Marianne home. He hints that he wouldn't mind if Lorraine found out about their relationship. They go to Connell's house, and Marianne asks Connell if he would hit a woman. He is horrified and says no. She says that her father used to hit her mother, and sometimes her as well. Connell then tells Marianne that he loves her, and the narrator tells us that Marianne will remember the intensity of this moment for years to come.
Soon after, Connell visits his grandmother in the hospital after she has a fall. His grandmother dislikes him, perhaps because his mother had him by accident as a teenager. He reflects that, while he doesn't know who his father is, he chooses not to ask Lorraine because he simply doesn't care. He also thinks about the recent election, when he voted for an unsuccessful communist candidate. Connell's grandmother mentions that he'll soon be going to Trinity College—which is true, though he worries about paying for it. In the car home with Lorraine, Connell remembers two fallouts from the other night, when he'd brought Marianne back from the party to his house. First, Lorraine had seen Marianne leaving Connell's room in the morning. She'd been pleased, but unsurprised, and asked him about his secrecy—was he afraid that Marianne's family would consider themselves too good for Connell's? Connell had been shocked by the very idea that Marianne's family would look down on him. Why, then, Lorraine had asked, was he keeping their relationship a secret? He'd avoided answering. The other fallout had been at school, when his friends had mocked him simply for driving Marianne home, laughing at the very idea that he'd have sex with her. He had been so stressed that he'd hidden in the bathroom and vomited, and then asked Rachel to Debs, an upcoming school dance. Driving his mother home from the hospital, he mentions that he's asked Rachel to the dance. Lorraine is horrified that he hasn't asked Marianne, since she realizes that his secrecy is merely a way to avoid his peers' judgment. She is so angry, in fact, that she insists on getting out of the car and walking home.
Analysis
These early chapters show that Normal People is deeply interested in power dynamics. On the level of plot, the book explores whether Connell and Marianne will be able to find love despite the uneven power dynamic between them. Under the surface, Rooney urges the reader to consider whether it's even possible for them to do this. Maybe, she suggests, the power differential between the two of them is simply too great: if they can't admit that they even know one another in front of their peers, how will their relationship ever develop? On the other hand, she asks readers to wonder whether the uneven power dynamic between them may be part of what they like in one another. Marianne experiences a thrill just knowing that she could, with one sentence, overturn the school's social dynamics by admitting that the two of them text. Connell, meanwhile, briefly wonders whether Marianne has lied to him about being abused as a child—though he is sure she hasn't, the mention still highlights the idea that victimhood might be an appealing posture. In a sense, the teenagers are in an impossible position. The things that make their relationship difficult are also things that make it interesting.
The fact that Marianne and Connell each hold power over one another, sometimes to extreme degrees, doesn't mean that one person has a clear upper hand in the relationship. Rather, they each have control over the other in certain limited spheres. These spheres can intersect in complex, contradictory ways. For instance, Connell holds power over Marianne at school, because he's popular and she's not. However, his popularity is partly predicated on the fact that he's considered non-threatening by his peers—he's from a working-class background, and he avoids conflict to such a degree that he never actually uses the power afforded by his social status. Marianne is unpopular at school, making her powerless there. Rooney is unambiguous in showing that she is treated cruelly and unfairly by many classmates. Yet, Connell at least suspects that she is unpopular because she is feared. Marianne chooses to avoid many of the trappings of femininity celebrated by her classmates—for instance, she doesn't shave her legs, and she isn't interested in many of the things girls in her town are expected to be interested in. Just as Connell's acquiescence to peers' expectations makes him popular while robbing him of autonomy, Marianne's refusal to acquiesce makes her unpopular while preserving her autonomy. Rooney also suggests that some of Marianne's friendlessness is self-inflicted, or at least part of a vicious cycle. When she is forced to socialize, at a school football game or a party, she enjoys Karen's company. Yet her conviction that she is friendless keeps her from seeking opportunities for friendship. This suggests that some of Marianne's problems are psychological, and may outlast her misery in high school.
Of course, while Connell undoubtedly enjoys a better experience in school than Marianne does, they're divided by another, perhaps deeper, difference: class. After all, their relationship forms because Connell's mother cleans the mansion that Marianne lives in. This doesn't mean that Marianne's home life is superior. Her father, who was abusive, is dead, and her brother is evidently sadistic towards her. Connell, meanwhile, is extraordinarily close with Lorraine. Furthermore, for purposes of their lives in Carricklea, class doesn't actually limit the lives they choose to live—their lives basically revolve around school, and they attend the same public school. Nevertheless, Rooney hints that their different class backgrounds will come into sharper relief as they age. Marianne thinks nothing of applying to Trinity, a top university in Ireland's capital. Connell is an equally good student, but only considers going to Trinity at Marianne's urging. He is anxious about paying his way. More than that, he's anxious that going to Trinity will make him upwardly mobile, cutting him off from the life he knows. In other words, for Connell, pursuing the things he's passionate about (primarily literature) inevitably means leaving a part of himself behind. Marianne doesn't have to worry about this, partly because she has no nostalgia for Carricklea, but largely because she is wealthy enough that a Trinity degree won't change her life as much. Both characters have leftist politics, supporting communist candidates and reading Marx. Yet neither is quite mature enough to see how class inequality affects their own relationships and social lives. Connell, for instance, is shocked by the implication that Marianne's family disapproves of his class background. Still, as they prepare to leave their small town, Rooney hints that these broader issues of inequality will affect them each in increasingly undeniable ways.
