Power and control in relationships

Power and control in relationships are not confined to overt force in Normal People. They circulate through attention, money, reputation, family authority, sexual expectations, and the ability to ask for help or refuse it. The novel places Connell and Marianne’s intimate bond at the center of this subject, but sets it alongside the harassment Marianne encounters at school, the sustained hostility in her family, and the social punishment that follows her relationships. Across these contexts, affection and control can be difficult to disentangle: an act may be chosen in one relationship and imposed in another, while care does not automatically erase an imbalance of power.

Power in public and private

Marianne’s limited familiarity with Carricklea gives social status a material force. She knows the school, her route to Connell’s house, and little else of the town; she has not visited the Knocklyon housing estate or the ghost estate behind the school, where Connell says people go drinking. She knows the broad local distinction between her family, regarded as good, and the Waldrons, regarded as bad, but does not know the full map of families and reputations she would like to reject. Connell, meanwhile, is popular despite the reputation attached to his family. The contrast makes status less a neutral description than a power that shapes who is seen as desirable and who is marked as an outsider.

At the school fundraiser, that public ordering turns into a direct violation. An older man introduced through Eric recognizes Marianne’s family name, makes unwanted contact, and gropes her despite her request that he let go. After she leaves the room in distress, Eric and Rachel dismiss the incident as amusing; Karen instead challenges them and stays with Marianne. The scene exposes more than the man’s physical power: the surrounding group’s laughter and minimization help determine whether Marianne’s refusal will be treated as real. Karen’s intervention breaks that social permission, even though it cannot undo the assault.

Connell’s economic insecurity supplies a different, quieter pressure. When his work hours are cut before exams, he realizes he cannot cover both rent and living expenses and must leave his Dublin room for the summer. He considers asking Marianne to let him stay, knowing she would probably agree, but delays because the request feels too much like asking her for money. Their finances are difficult to discuss against the background of Marianne’s mother paying Connell’s mother for domestic work, and Marianne’s habit of paying for meals and outings without keeping account. Their closeness crosses an economic inequality that Connell feels keenly even when Marianne does not make it an explicit condition of their relationship.

Family authority and the limits of refusal

At home, Alan’s power over Marianne is repeated rather than confined to one quarrel. After criticizing her examination results and insulting her, he pulls her away from the sink and spits at her. Marianne returns to washing the cups, though her hand trembles. Her mother’s response offers no effective protection: Denise worries aloud that university has sheltered Marianne from the real world and treats Alan’s behavior as sibling rivalry. The scene shows how the household’s authority is reinforced not only by Alan’s aggression but by the failure to name it as abuse.

Marianne later describes the broader pattern to Connell. Alan follows her through the house when he is in a bad mood, enters her room even when she is asleep, and sometimes hits her. She says the psychological treatment is more demoralizing than the physical violence, and explains that she did not disclose it earlier because she feared Connell would consider her damaged and stop wanting her. Her account makes silence part of the control: abuse narrows her sense of what can be said, while the lack of a reliable response from her mother leaves her to manage it alone.

That history continues into the Christmas confrontation. Alan objects to Marianne seeing Connell, invokes what people in town are saying, and throws a beer bottle that smashes behind her. When she runs upstairs and tries to keep him out of her room, he kicks the door; it eventually bursts open and strikes her face. Her immediate effort is still to prevent escalation, even offering to clean up and not tell Denise. The scene links physical danger to a learned strategy of appeasement and concealment, rather than presenting the blow as an isolated accident without context.

Intimacy, consent, and unequal influence

Marianne’s description of her relationships with Connell and Jamie insists on a distinction between performed submission and a dynamic she experienced as real. Speaking about Jamie, she says that she acts as though she is in his power, whereas with Connell she did not need to act and would have done what he wanted. She also connects her self-condemnation to the belief that she deserves bad treatment. Connell rejects the idea that her confession makes her a bad girlfriend, but their exchange reveals how an intimate preference can coexist with shame and how easily a chosen dynamic might be misread as evidence that a person deserves harm.

The novel gives that distinction a concrete counterpoint when Jamie’s behavior escalates at a gathering. After a tense exchange in the kitchen, Jamie drops a glass and it shatters; Marianne lunges toward him, and Connell steps between them and leads her out. She offers no resistance as he guides her into the garden. Away from the others, he holds her until she calms, and the two smoke quietly. The scene contrasts Jamie’s humiliating provocation with Connell’s protective response, but also shows Connell taking charge of the immediate situation: his intervention matters because it removes Marianne from danger, not because protection makes her his possession.

In the quieter conversation that follows, Marianne explains that Alan has told her no one would miss her if she were dead, while her mother was present and did not defend her. Connell is shaken and asks why she never told him. She says she feared he would see her as damaged and no longer want her. He cries, apologizes, and embraces her; when they begin to kiss, Marianne stops, saying they should not. Her refusal is accepted. The moment makes communication newly possible without turning sympathy into entitlement: closeness does not cancel her ability to withdraw consent.

Care, dependency, and the power to leave

Connell’s influence over Marianne is not simply a matter of physical strength or explicit commands. She responds intensely to his attention, and their shared history gives a gesture or look a force it would not have in an ordinary encounter. After Marianne is upset when he walks away from her, a conversation about their past leads to renewed intimacy. Connell first hesitates, saying he does not want to lose their friendship and needs time to think. When he reaches for her hand and kisses it, Marianne experiences his influence as overwhelming; he then admits that he does not want her to leave. The exchange shows how his mixed signals can leave her unsure what he wants even as she remains eager to please him.

Connell later recognizes the history behind that imbalance. He understands that he has long known how Marianne responds to his look and touch, and admits to himself that he has cultivated his hold over her. The image he associates with that influence is a key left ready for use at an empty property: it suggests access maintained even when a relationship is uncertain, and a form of power that depends on familiarity and availability rather than constant force. His realization complicates the earlier picture of himself as simply the person who protects her. Care and influence coexist, and good intentions alone cannot make the power between them equal.

Marianne, too, has a history of accepting treatment that limits her control. In Sweden, after a breakup and the loss of much of her former social circle, she enters a coercive arrangement with Lukas that leaves her feeling detached from other people and from her own desires. During a photography session, he binds her wrists and prepares to blindfold her. When she says she does not want to continue and threatens to call the police, she is able to make her refusal clear and leave. The episode contrasts a boundary that is finally asserted with earlier patterns in which exhaustion, isolation, and the wish to give in have made resistance harder. It also prevents the novel’s account of submission from collapsing all unequal sexual dynamics into one category: willingness, pressure, and coercion are not interchangeable.

Reputation, narration, and the pattern of control

Power also operates after relationships end, through stories that circulate about Marianne. Following her breakup with Jamie, friends distance themselves, and people turn away or fall silent when she enters a room. The loss of social standing unsettles her, but she comes to see that approval and contempt can both be mechanisms for trying to dominate her. Later, she recalls the shame surrounding the photographs Lukas took, though he had not posted them online. The pictures still become part of her sense of exposure; she asks him to delete them, and the intense shame eventually passes. The aftermath shows that control can persist through the possibility of being watched and judged, even without public distribution of the images.

The novel’s shifts in perspective make that power visible without reducing it to a single explanation. Marianne’s self-accusations are set against evidence of the cruelty she endures; Connell’s account of events can be factually accurate yet emotionally incomplete. He recognizes that describing one encounter only as a request and refusal would omit the force of their long history and his own part in maintaining his influence. The narrative repeatedly places words, gestures, and bodily responses beside one another, showing how control may be exercised through silence, social permission, financial dependence, threats, or the expectation of compliance.

Ultimately, power in these relationships is defined by whether a person can speak, refuse, leave, and be believed. The novel does not treat intimacy as automatically equal, nor does it make every imbalance equivalent to abuse. It distinguishes Connell’s capacity for care from his admitted ability to influence Marianne, and it distinguishes Marianne’s chosen vulnerability from the coercion she experiences at home and in Sweden. Their bond remains compelling partly because neither character is wholly outside the other’s power; the possibility of a more mutual relationship depends on recognizing that history rather than pretending it has disappeared.