Marianne, he said, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.
Sally Rooney, Normal People, pg. 113
Last winter break, my social media feeds were bombarded by edits of the show Normal People. Eventually, I decided to give in, but rather than watching the TV adaptation, I decided to read the book.
Sally Rooney’s Normal People is a love story between the two young protagonists, Marianne and Connell, set in Ireland in the 2010’s. However beyond the romance, the story explores many more topics such as mental health, identity, and most notably class – which I will focus on in this post.
Style and Structure
Sally Rooney’s style of writing is infamous for its unusual emission of quotation marks. Initially, that irritated and confused me, however as I continued reading, I got accustomed and even started to appreciate that choice. It became apparent to me how this mirrors the couple’s tendency to miscommunicate – a main theme in this story. In addition, the novel manages to further portray the dynamic between the two main protagonists through not only it structure but also the first line:
Marianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell.
Sally Rooney, Normal People, pg. 1
This line accentuates how Marianne would always be there for Connell, and how she would do anything he would ask for.
Another remarkable element of the story’s structure is how the events are timed. The chapters are in chronological order, each chapter usually corresponding to a specific week or month. Each chapter starts off with the present tense, and then switches to a flashback, which is indicated by the shift to the past tense. Finally, the chapter goes back to the setting it started with, and goes back to the present tense. This is to convey how the present is influenced by the past, and how previous events shape our mindsets and future actions and attitudes.
Class
As a Marxist, I think that class is sort of the structuring principle of our social life. So then when it comes to writing a novel, of course I have to be attentive to the way that class structures social life. Otherwise I’m not writing about the world that we really inhabit.
Sally Rooney
One of the most prominent concepts conveyed in the book is how class affects a person’s life and their interactions with other people, especially those from a different class. Marianne is part of the upper class and lives in a big mansion, whereas Connell is part of the working class. In fact, his mother is a single mother who works as a cleaner in Marianne’s family home. Although both of the protagonists share many interests and opinions, this integral difference influences their mindsets in many ways.
A notable example of that is when they both applied for a scholarship in Trinity College. For Connell, it would be of practical help, as it would remove a huge financial burden off his and his mother’s shoulders. On the other hand, for Marianne, who does not struggle to pay for rent nor tuition, earning it would simply be “a matter of reputation” (pg. 138).
Another way the writer highlights the significance of social class is how although both Marianne and Connell are intelligent, people perceive their intellectuality in different ways. In Trinity College where elitism pervades, students idolize Marianne and appreciate her intellect, meanwhile, they look down upon Connell with disdain. Connell also realized the relationship between social class and education, and that upper class people yield to literary works to appear cultured, rather than to educate themselves.
All in all, this novel is more than just an emotional coming-of-age love story. It exemplifies how relationships are affected by factors beyond the characters, as there are several external circumstances such as class. As well as that, it effectively lets the readers into the characters’ minds, not only demonstrating what they think, but also why they think in that way. Personally, what I enjoyed most about this book is how realistic and well-rounded the characters are; your feelings and thoughts about them will change as you read on.
Questions for Further Discussion
- How do you think social class and education are related?
- In what ways do you think that the structure of a text influences its meaning?
There are definitely many ways that the structure of a text influences its meaning. I find your analysis very thorough and eye-opening in many aspects. Speaking of time and the tenses used throughout the story and how it changes from present to past, then back to present is a great observation. This observation on its own could be giving/ delivering a message to the reader. As you mentioned Habiba, this book did a great job not only in telling a love story, but also in discussing or portraying other factors such as class and the way of living. Great post! It was a fun read.
I love this novel! other than being a great read, it really is a novel of our times. i think education is linked with wealth, especially private schools, which furthers the income inequality in society, because people are segregated by their social class. an ideal society would have publicly funded education with equal opportunity.
the structure of the novel is also very important. all the speech in the text lacks speech marks so there’s a flow that is uninterrupted and it feels like the reader is much closer to the characters. the only other author who’s known for this is cormac mccarthy, another author i like.
I loved reading this! It’s very interesting how authors structure their text carefully in order to convey certain emotions, images, connotations, or even themes, as you’ve discussed regarding social class. In fact, the link between social class and the success of a relationship is very much seen in my culture too. Back home, it is believed that a man must be atleast the same social class as the woman if he plans to marry her, and this criteria is taken very seriously.
To answer your first question, I believe that being part of a higher social class allows for more educational opportunities that those of lower social class. This comes back to tuition fees, the ability to hire tutors, bribery, and the list goes on.
Great post, Habiba! I haven’t read Normal People or even finished the show yet, but your observations and insights were super intriguing. I’ve read another Sally Rooney novel and it seems like class conflict is a common theme across her work.
Regarding your question, I think social class is connected to every aspect of our lives. Marianne and Connell’s experiences at Trinity reveal how class and education intersect to shape their lives. Connell’s struggles, especially, were a great representation of how the silent yet persistent elitism present at prestigious academic institutions impacts disadvantaged students’ educational journeys and self-esteem.
What you said about perceived intellectuality was also really interesting, and I think it could also be tied to expectations and norms about the fields/programs people should pursue based on their socioeconomic status.
An amazing blog entry, Habiba. I just wanted to add to the discussion by mentioning that social class and education are closely related. Education can play a significant role in determining social class, as those who receive higher education typically have access to better-paying jobs and more career opportunities. In turn, the higher social class can often provide greater access to education, with more resources to support it, such as private schools or tutors. Education can also provide individuals with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate various aspects of life, including healthcare, legal systems, and financial management, which can impact their social class. So yes, social class and education are very much related.
Love this post, Habiba! I’ve also read two of Rooney’s novels (Normal People, and Conversations with Friends), and while I enjoyed each to different degrees, your love for this book is infectious! I was also struck by the way that Rooney managed to position relationships in a socioeconomic context — to turn relationships from purely romantic to social constructs. We often think of romance in interpersonal terms — e.g. person A and person B — but neglect how the interpersonal exists within the framework of the social, economic, and political. I often wonder how Marianne and Connell’s relationship would have been different had they both been of the same class, either if Marianne was less well-off, or if Connell was more so. Either way, great post!
Habiba, thank you for your fantastic blog. Over the winter vacation, I read Normal People! I was aware of the diverse opinions on the book and the formatting options, but I was didn’t know much about the plot and the themes. My reading experience was unaffected by the formatting because I was listening to the audiobook. Nonetheless, I felt that leaving the dialogue unquoted was a really intriguing decision, especially since it emphasizes the significance of both the words that are said and the ones that aren’t. I think of quotation marks as a way of emphasizing words since, we give spoken words greater weight than those that ruminate in our brains. Normal people is a really interesting book because some people adore it and others don’t get the hype. Although it isn’t my favorite novel, I did appreciate the realism it provided, particularly when it came to challenges of low self-esteem. The book analysis you provided astounds me greatly. I find that I like this book more and more as I reflect on its themes.
“How do you think social class and education are related?”
This question stood out to me because we discuss it in my psychology classes very often. Social class and socioeconomic status greatly impact the individual’s development in terms of their social interactions and the activities they participate in from a very young age. Similarly, education impacts the individual’s social skills and language development because of the quality of education and social interactions they receive. With that being said, in my opinion, social class and education are the two main factors that shape an individual’s lifestyle and personality.
I really loved this blog post, Habiba! I think you did a great job giving us a gist of the book and the topic of relativity between social class and education presented in it.
To answer your question, I think social class and education are highly related as the higher your status is, the easier it is for you to get education. However, when you’re from a low social class, it is usually harder to get education due to the financial setbacks that you face. People from a low social class are also more likely to work harder to get to a higher point in life whereas people from a higher social class tend to be more laid back and calm.
Social class and education have been historically related since the start of human civilization. It was often the higher classes that were given access to education back in most of the ancient civilizations and the majority of the medieval ones. If we discuss social class and education now, we find that while, in general, education is more accessible to everyone, it is still quite difficult for the people on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum to have the same opportunities as the people on the higher end of the socioeconomic ladder. As you said in your blog, for Connel, getting a scholarship is life-changing, while for Marianne, it is simply nothing more than a bragging contest.
As for your second question regarding text structure, especially in the time aspect of it, I would say that knowing an event that the characters within the story do not know about can easily cloud our relations to the character. The characters, in nature, are just as human as you and I; thus, they are prone to making mistakes when the entire chess board is not laid out in front of them. Perhaps, they might even make mistakes when they can see it all due to the influence of the heart.
i think social class and “level” of education are related, however, intelligence is not associated with the level of education of a person. one of the best minds have come from villages, and a great movie that represents this is the true story “the boy who harnessed the wind”