Often, when people refer to the most memorable part of the book/ show (of normal people), they reference the line: ‘I’m not a religious person Marianne, but i do sometimes think God made you for me’. I’m a huge fan of the line itself, both in writing and the way it is conveyed by Paul Mescal in the show. It encompasses a running theme, which exists throughout normal people, that no other human in their respective lives understands Connell (or Marianne) the way these two characters do. What makes the line even more impactful is that people fall on two sides of the reaction spectrum to it once it is read or heard – and both are profound epiphanies. Either you hear or read this quote and you feel that you know someone like this – someone who understands your existence, emotions, turmoil and happiness so well that they seem almost crafted by a higher being specifically for you – or, you experience the emotion of envy. I have never known someone like this, I want to know someone like this, I want someone to think of me as this person to them. I think this is why so many people latch onto this story and this love and this reverence that Marianne and Connell have towards each other.
The idea of reverence between Marianne and Connell may sound far-fetched and may even allude to the idea that these characters deify one another, but I think (even if subtly) this is what Sally Rooney intends to do. We see an example of this in the way that Marianne and Connell talk about each other to other people. ‘Well, he’s smarter than me. He’s actually the smartest person I’ve ever met.’ says Marianne in episode 5. ‘She’s really smart. She’s a lot smarter than me.’ says Connell in a later episode. The fact that these two are academically gifted is no secret to the viewer, it is set up from the very beginning that they connect on an intellectual level first and foremost. One of the earliest instances of this occurs in the first episode when Connell picks up The Golden Notebook by Dorris Lessing from Marianne’s shelf and claims that he’s read it with a bit of surprise that they are both familiar to the book. So, when they describe each other as smart it is a recognition of the very root of their connection, their familiarity, this love that seems to perpetually exist around them even when they don’t know what to call it. To me, it feels like the highest form of praise they can give to each other. It goes beyond their physical attraction to each other down to what they are outside of their human body – and that is, smart.
It seems like a simple compliment, maybe one that is even abnormal or backhanded to some. As someone who placed so much of their own self-worth and identity on academic achievement, I know how much it can mean (especially to a young Marianne), when someone just as smart as her (who she believes to be smarter than herself) tells her she’s smarter than them. It feels like an acknowledgement – one that she rarely got from Connell in their secondary/ high school years. It feels like he says that he sees her even when he ignores her in the corridors, in the classroom, and in the presence of his ‘popular’ friends. I think Connell knows this in a way and carries it with him, which is why when he’s asked to describe her in therapy he mentions first that she is hard to describe if you don’t know her, then his first description of her is that she’s smart, a lot smarter than him. They put each other on a pedestal – one unachievable to the respective character when they highlight that the other is smarter than them. And that is what I mean when I say it is a form of reverence or deification – each one feels (on some level) that the other is far away or unreachable to them.
Perhaps the most famous line (or at least, the one I think about most often) happens very early on, in episode 2, where during a conversation about their futures Connell says ‘I bet you’d pretend not to know me if we bumped into each other‘. Connell tries to say it in a self-effacing manner, half-joking but there’s an underlying fear of alienation that resonates in his voice, like he’s scared she will agree and confirm this worry, then apologises with a small ‘sorry’ looking down at his hands losing the courage to look in her curious eyes. Marianne pauses for a few moments (I think for a moment, like me, she can’t believe that he’s just said that and even more so, that he seems to be serious) and looks at him questioningly before saying, very certainly, ‘I would never pretend to not know you, Connell’. When I first heard this line delivered, I cried for Marianne and felt enraged at Connell. Daisy Edgar Jones’ delivery of this line is assertive – like the ‘joke’ itself is insulting. And it is. Because up until this point (and until they leave high school), Connell has always been the one to pretend he doesn’t know Marianne.
He watches his friends make misogynistic remarks about her ‘unremarkable’ assets and face (despite the fact that she’s very pretty – but that’s besides the point), lets the girls he surrounds himself berate her and more, ignores her when she cheers for him at football and many more instances where he outright ‘pretends to not know’ her in public. In some way, I think this line demonstrates his own acknowledgement of his horrible treatment of Marianne while simultaneously demonstrating his own fear of being on the receiving end. It is extremely selfish – as many teenagers are. Yet, Connell’s recognition of how poorly he behaves to Marianne shows a level of self-awareness that is more mature than his years and seems to go missing when they are in public. This is perhaps why, after letting the remark settle in the room and hearing himself, he looks down at his hands and apologises, lacking the courage to look into her eyes that seem to say ‘are you kidding? do you hear yourself right now?’ (at least, that’s what I thought and hoped she thought in that moment).
Her reply to this is conveyed so well in the show. When Marianne says she would never pretend to not know him, she finishes the line with his name. To me, this feels like she is asking him to reflect. Because she has not outwardly said it, but he knows and she knows that what she means is that she would never do to him what he did to her during these years of high school. It is heartbreaking because it shows that she also recognises the inhumanity of it all, of being kept like a dirty secret all for the sake of ‘popularity’ – an intangible thing that Marianne can’t even fathom the importance of. The fact that she has to be the one to reassure him that she would never treat him that way is ludicrous as Connell never extends her this grace. Later, in college, she relays to him that she is ashamed of putting up with the way he had treated her back then, which confirms this.
Marianne upholds her promise, one that she had every right not to honour given his treatment of her in those earlier years, as when she sees him for the first time again at college, she says: ‘Connell Waldron, from beyond the grave’. She doesn’t just acknowledge his existence to him, in a secluded room away from everyone else; she announces him with his full name to her friends, silently telling them also to acknowledge him in a way he had never done for her when she needed it. With this small act, she says: I know you, I’ve known you, we’ve known each other and we still know each other, all at once, something her younger self wanted so badly from Connell. Instead of holding a grudge, she fulfills for him what her younger self was starved for: acknowledgment.
This piece doesn’t aim to vilify Connell (although perhaps his younger self), as he is a changing and very human character who has extremely questionable priorities as we all do in our teenage years. I wanted to draw attention to two of the most well-known quotes from Normal People and give some context to it as well as my own reactions to them. I do wonder if others had different reactions to either of these parts or what your own thoughts are on them (or any other moments in normal people). I actually have a lot of different thoughts on other episodes and parts of this show so I will probably release more on them, but this is it for this article. Let me know what you thought!
-oknaima💌
oknaima 