Normal People

Marianne gets ready for a mysterious date one evening. On her way out of her house, she is stopped, challenged, and pushed by Alan, her bullying older brother. Once she escapes, she sends a text to an unknown recipient, announcing that she is on her way. 

She remembers going to a school soccer game with the rest of her class at the end of the term. Though she doesn’t care about soccer as a sport, she was delighted to watch Connell out on the field and to witness him score a goal. She thinks about their evolving friendship over the past two weeks: how they began to loan one another books and how they eventually kissed. She feels different around Connell, no longer trapped in her own identity. 

Marianne arrives at Connell’s small house; he is the one to whom she has been sending texts. He lets her in, “looking quickly around before closing the door” (11). 

Connell sits in his bed with Marianne, looking at the Trinity College website. She plans to go to Trinity next year, and he remains uncertain both about where he should go and what he should study. He has a half-hearted plan to study law, but Marianne tells him that he should study English, since he clearly enjoys reading novels. 

Connell reflects on the risks of leaving his social group behind for Trinity (the college is in Dublin). He thinks about the difference between who he is with Marianne and who he is with his school friends. He also reflects on his and Marianne’s growing intimacy, for they have become secret lovers. He asks Marianne teasingly if she will ignore him at Trinity, then realizes too late that he has brought up the secrecy of their relationship there in Carricklea. 

Marianne goes to a nightclub to sell fundraising tickets for the Debs Ball (the Irish equivalent of a high school prom). She has never been chosen for this type of social role before and suspects that someone suggested her name as a joke. Once she arrives, most of the other girls are friendly toward her, apart from Rachel Moran, the most popular girl in the group. Rachel has an obvious crush on Connell and suspects Marianne of being a rival. 

Connell arrives with his group of friends. Though he and Marianne continue to exchange surreptitious phone texts, they still do not acknowledge one another in public. When Marianne goes to dance with Karen—one of the friendlier girls in the group—Karen notes that Connell is staring at her. Karen also apologizes for Rachel’s behavior. 

A group of rowdy, drunk older men come into the club; they are friends of Eric’s, a boy in Connell’s group. One man openly assaults Marianne, putting his arm around her and groping her breast. She runs out of the room, hearing the sound of laughter behind her.   

The group follows Marianne out to where she has collapsed in the hallway. Karen comforts her, while others in the group offer tepid defenses of the man who has assaulted her. Connell offers to drive Marianne home, first snapping at Rachel for her lack of sympathy. 

The two of them then go to Connell’s house. Once they are in bed together, Marianne confesses to Connell that her father (who is now dead) used to hit both her and her mother. Connell tells Marianne, for the first time, that he loves her.

Connell visits his 58-year-old grandmother, who has recently fallen and broken her hip, in the hospital. She resents him because of his resemblance to his father, whom he doesn’t know; his mother got pregnant in high school and raised him on her own. Connell reflects on the difference between his own small family and his friends’ more traditional, two-parent families. In some ways, he is relieved not to have a father. 

Connell flashes back to Lorraine discovering him and Marianne together, the morning after the night out at the bar. Lorraine queried him, although in a teasing and approving way, about his and Marianne’s relationship. Once Connell arrived at school that morning, he was questioned by Eric. He locked himself in the bathroom, feeling panicked and claustrophobic, and questioned his reasons for being with Marianne. 

Connell is now driving Lorraine home from the hospital. He tells her, abruptly, that he plans to invite Rachel Moran to the Debs ball. Lorraine is upset to hear this news and demands that Connell drop her off at a garage. 

Marianne sits on her front lawn. She hears Alan nearby on his phone, gossiping about people who have scored high on their final exams. Through Alan, she finds out that Connell has received a perfect 600 score; she herself received a 590. She hears Alan congratulate Connell; Alan then hands her his phone, asking her—as an intended joke—if she would like to congratulate Connell herself. Alan is surprised and belligerent when Marianne simply disconnects the call. 

Marianne recalls when Connell, while they were alone together in his room, told her about his plans to take Rachel to the Debs Ball. Marianne treated the news stoically but was privately devastated, and she quit school the following day. Connell attempted to get in touch with her, but she refused all of his calls. She still saw Lorraine, however, in Lorraine’s capacity as their housekeeper. Lorraine expressed empathy for Marianne, telling her that she was too good for Connell. 

Back in the present moment, Alan demands to know why Marianne did not talk to Connell. He grows threatening toward her. His bullying behavior, moreover, is implicitly approved by their mother, Denise, who favors Alan and dislikes her daughter. Marianne consoles herself with the thought that she will leave her town and family soon, for Trinity.