In the present text I’m going to analyse the second chapter of “Normal People”.

To start with, the first paragraph deals with one of the main themes of the book: the violence by Alan on Marianne. Initially Marianne is presented in a specific moment: she is preparing herself to go out whit someone (probably Connell). When she is going out of the door, Alan blocks her sister before she leaves the house. He wants to know where she is going and whit whom, and if she has any friend. This is the first scene where Alan expresses his arrogance, his preoccupation for Marianne. She is very nervous and insecure, but she can keep calm, she replies whit short answers at his brother’s questions. It seems Marianne is used to be in this situation.

In the second paragraph, there is a flashback where the third person narrator describes the road to go to the match of school soccer team. There, Marianne makes a thought: she imagines that the real life isn’t there but in another place of the world, and she asks herself if she has the possibility to live that life. This implies she can’t feel comfortable where she is, and she doesn’t consider her life the real life. She is always lonely, and she has no friends. Moreover, in this paragraph there is also the description of one moment Marianne looks Connell. In this way the intelligent reader understands that Marianne is in love with Connell yet: she wanted to see him do sex with someone, and this thought makes her very strange and different to others.

Furthermore, there is a description of one situation happens in class that focuses the attention on Marianne’s character. There is another flashback: during one lesson, the teacher surprises Marianne looks out of the window. She was thinking about what makes her different by others. In fact, she doesn’t want to wear same clothes of others or not have the possibility to makes what she wants. This attitude expresses how Marianne is, considers strange by others.

After that there is a conversation between Marianne and Connell at Marianne’s house. In that section Connell conveys his opinion about Marianne. Connell thinks Marianne has got different personalities because when she talks whit him, she take on another behaviour. It seems Connell is her first friend, and with him she is free to talk about everything. Indeed she always asks questions to Connell, and him, as always, answers with shorts sentences. He wanted to change the conversation to talk about them. But Connell is a person who cares about judgements of others, and he doesn’t want his friends let know something about their relationship. But Marianne is really in love with him, and she would do anything for him.

To conclude, the last paragraph emphasize how Marianne likes Connell. She wears graceful clothes to go to Connell’s house. When she enters the door, Connell looks behind Marianne to be sure that no one looks Marianne entire in his house. The second chapter expresses the main characteristics of the two protagonists and introduces important themes that will be in all the novel, like violence or insecurity or the structure of the flashback or the setting of the story.