Analysis on Normal People’s second and third chapters

After introducing the two protagonists and their characteristics Sally Rooney makes a fast forward of three weeks. At the beginning of the second chapter Marianne’s brother is introduced in the story in a rude way, because he gets in her way to go out, asking her a ton of questions, making fun of her, being very stubborn. This is the first scene of violence you encounter in the book and if the reader is deep into the story of the characters he could feel Marianne’s sufferance, just by the way her brother makes the situation uncomfortable. After this she goes to the school’s football team game, where even Connell plays.

After that time she told Connell she liked him, he started going to her house more often, even earlier, just to spend some time with her. Then he knew he like her, so he kissed her and he felt like relieved and he felt really in connection with her.

Returning to school Marianne could not talk with anyone because Connell didn’t want to ruin his “social status with his friends”, so the only thing she could do was staring at him during lesson, but nothing else, but she was ok about doing like that, because she knew she would get what she wanted.

In the third chapter the two protagonists have sex for the first time and Connell feels like Marianne suits him perfectly, he feels like she is the right one. At the same time he is in doubt about which university to attend and she suggests him to go studying English at Trinity in Dublin. At the end of this chapter he takes the decision to make her happy and at the same time because he feels like there he could finally stay in an open relationship with Marianne.