Trauma and “Sapiosex” in Sally Rooney’s Normal People

There is nothing “normal” about Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan’s relationship in Sally Rooney’s Normal People. This psychological novel, published in 2018, follows the lives of two young adults, first in Sligo County, Ireland, during their adolescence, and later in Dublin, as they attend Trinity College. Their love for each other is all-encompassing and obvious, though often poorly communicated, and even devalued as a result of the characters’ different traumas. Marianne’s trauma stems from a longstanding pattern of abuse in her family, while Connell’s trauma is more difficult to pinpoint, but seems to germinate from a lack of integration between his inner self and his social self. In this essay, I examine Marianne and Connell’s individual traumas through the lens of trauma studies to understand what constitutes trauma for each, and to show how differences in social class and access to wealth lead them to aggravate one another’s trauma, despite their love. As one critic has argued, the relationship between Marianne and Connell can be described as “sapiosexual,” as an attachment that is both physical and intensely intellectual. Throughout Normal People, sex and dialogue are inextricably interwoven for Marianne and Connell, and their notorious physical relationship is precisely how the characters work through their trauma. The difference in trauma manifestation between Connell and Marianne displays how trauma in some is cyclical and recurring, while for others there are gradual instances of mini-traumas that play out in reactionary and harmful ways. Though these characters exacerbate each other’s behaviors in many instances, ultimately, through their sapiosexual relationship, they are able to work through their trauma, highlighting the importance of a strong connection between mind and body.

To fully understand Marianne and Connell’s trauma and its implications for their relationship, one must first develop an understanding of trauma theory more broadly. This multidisciplinary field aims to define how trauma is processed by the self by looking through varying lenses, such as repetition and memory. Cathy Caruth, one of the most prominent scholars within the field, posits the idea that trauma is caused, at the largest scale, by “a shock that appears to work very much like a bodily threat but is in fact a break in the mind’s experience of time” (61). Because of this ‘break,’ or the inability of the mind to react in time, trauma “is not directly available to experience,” and the mind processes it as a near-death experience (Caruth 61). It then comes back through repetition—the mind’s way of trying to understand what it missed in the first place. When it unlocks this Pandora’s Box—“the threat of death,” or the power to know that it is finite—the mind cannot help but feel the need to revisit that ‘shock,’ because it also cannot understand how it survived (Caruth 62). In fact, through an analysis of two of Freud’s works, Caruth defines trauma as “a theory of the peculiar incomprehensibility of human survival” (58). Though extremely rich in its content and evidence, repetition is just one of the lenses through which trauma can be understood.

Susan Robin Suleiman and Judith Herman offer another way to define trauma: through memory. Suleiman introduces two camps: a Freudian camp, including Judith Herman, which believes in the theory of dissociation; and a second camp with which Suleiman more closely aligns, which struggles to accept repressed memory as completely possible and plausible. The first camp believes that if the trauma was indeed extremely traumatic, the subject is increasingly likely to dissociate, or compartmentalize it, leading to a splitting of the self. This dissociation then leads to an amnesia of sorts, rendering the subject unable to recall the trauma, unless it is somehow brought out of them, at which point they can begin to work through it (Suleiman 277). On the other hand, the second camp discredits part of Freud’s work, and proves the existence of “false memories,” which can serve as relief, or an explanation for the patient, rather than being based on real events. Contrarily, they believe that trauma and memory have a direct relationship—the more intense the trauma, the more memorable it is (Suleiman 279). Though opposing, both camps offer compelling perspectives on trauma responses, which can be vastly different in nature because of their inconceivable goal—to understand one’s survival. Does trauma, then, have to be a singular “experience?” Can it be a state of being? Caruth defines it as one moment, a ‘shock,’ though Suleiman seems to have a less singular view of what trauma looks like.

Normal People represents both forms of trauma. Marianne’s trauma stems from her childhood, and is constantly reinforced through repetition throughout her young adult life. She was physically abused by her father before he passed away, and then by her older brother, often with her mother in the room. In a conversation with Connell, she reveals that her brother mentally abuses her too, even going so far as to tell her that she should commit suicide (Rooney 188). Marianne admits that she finds the mental abuse more hurtful than the physical trauma, saying, “To be honest I don’t even mind it [the physical abuse] that much. The psychological stuff is more demoralizing” (Rooney 189). Marianne’s indifference to physical abuse is, in part, a response to trauma she experienced as a girl, the ‘shock’ she experienced at such a young age that her mind is now trying to understand. This “repetition compulsion,” as termed by Freud, is particularly poignant in the romantic partners she chooses after Connell, who does not lay a hand on her even when she asks him to (Caruth 61, 63; Rooney 265). Over coffee, she tells Connell that her new partner Jamie is a “sadist,” explaining that “he likes to beat [her] up” (Rooney 136). Connell prompts her to reveal that she does not actually enjoy it, though she was the one who suggested it. She explains, “It’s not that I get off on being degraded as such…I just like to know that I would degrade myself for someone if they wanted me to… It’s about the dynamic, more than what actually happens” (Rooney 137). This is an act of reclaiming, of taking back control of an experience that her mind never fully processed. Marianne makes it sound like a choice when it is not—it is her mind trying to explain to itself the trauma of being abused, attempting to find new avenues of working through it, while at the same time being unable to stop seeking it out.

Later, with another emotionally and physically abusive partner, Lukas, Marianne begins to realize this in herself: “She desires to hear them [bad things about herself], but she’s conscious by now of being able to desire in some sense what she does not want” (Rooney 196). Somehow, Marianne knows she desires things she does not necessarily want, though she does not know why, or where this is coming from, which Caruth and Freud explain as “the endless inherent necessity of repetition” that marks the survival of trauma (Caruth 62-63). She tries to explain it to herself, telling Connell, “Maybe I want to be treated badly…I don’t know. Sometimes I think I deserve bad things because I’m a bad person” (Rooney 138). Though Marianne accurately points out negative self-beliefs she holds about herself, she still fails to understand the connection between her trauma and her choice of romantic partners.

Connell’s trauma is more insidious, arguably missing that initial ‘shock’ that Caruth describes. In fact, Connell’s trauma does not have a singular origin, and is reinforced by the various “mini-traumas” that he experiences throughout the later half of his life. Connell is popular in high school, yet feels ‘perverse’ with Marianne, who he feels brings out the ‘realest’ version of him—his inner self (Rooney 24). He grew up in a low-income household, headed by a single mother who is employed by Marianne’s emotionally stunted mother. He does not have a father, yet his father’s impact is felt not only in that loss but also in the difference he feels from his peers. Additionally, his family name has a bad reputation in town, which contributes to Connell’s feelings of non-belonging (Rooney 48). During college, Connell also becomes the victim of sexual assault, at the hands of a high school teacher who would flirt with him and touch him while he was still in high school. Perhaps Connell’s trauma is best summarized as the feeling of being different, of not knowing who he is, while still knowing who he is not—like everyone else. In fact, Connell has dissociative thoughts, showing that he did experience trauma. He thinks of this divide when applying to college, “consumed by a sense that he is in fact two separate people, and soon he will have to choose which person to be on a full-time basis, and leave the other person behind” (Rooney 27). Connell feels these two different people in himself so strongly that he struggles to decide which ‘person’ to appropriate for this new beginning.

W. Winnicott’s notion of a ‘True’ and ‘False’ Self sheds light on Connell’s inner and social persona. Connell has a “True Self” that is “central and powered by the instincts” and “a part that is turned outwards and related to the world,” or a “False Self” (Winnicott 140). Winnicott emphasizes the role of mothers in the development of the ‘True’ and ‘False’ Self during childhood, explaining that it is the mother’s role to reinforce the “True Self” until it is strong enough to exist on its own (Winnicott 146). Connell’s “True Self,” the one he is with Marianne, exists as a result of his loving mother, though the origins of his “False Self” cannot be attributed to her. Perhaps that is precisely what Connell experiences as traumatic—a loving mother, and a stable upbringing, yet these persistent feelings of difference and bifurcation that cannot be attributed to any particular object or person, later reinforced by his “mini-traumas.” Furthermore, Connell is diagnosed with depression, even contemplating suicide. Winnicott explains that suicide happens when “conditions cannot be found” for the “True Self to come into its own…Suicide in this context is the destruction of the total self in avoidance of the annihilation of the True Self” (143). Even in college, Connell is not able to integrate his inner self with his social self, which ultimately leads to his suicidal thoughts.

Though Marianne and Connell love and care for each other, nourishing each other’s “True Selves,” they also exacerbate each other’s trauma in certain moments. This is not to say that they traumatize each other, but rather reinforce beliefs and behaviors that surface within themselves as a result of their trauma. At the beginning of Normal People, Connell ignores Marianne in high school, where she is bullied, even after initiating intimate moments with her at home. He ignores her, though aware he has the social capital to stop the bullying. This is partly because he fosters some hate for Marianne because her mother employs his mother, and Marianne does not have to worry about money, instead thinking of scholarships they both win as “just a matter of reputation” (Rooney 143). In Dublin, where Connell feels that everyone else is wealthy, knowing that Marianne is likewise not struggling with money contributes to his feeling of difference. This goes unsaid too: “They had never talked, for example, about the fact that her mother paid his mother money to scrub their floors and hang their laundry, or about the fact that this money circulated indirectly to Connell, who spent it, as often as not, on Marianne” (Rooney 127). Connell compensates for this lack of monetary capital by seeing Marianne’s body as “just an item of property, and though it has been handed around and misused in various ways, it has somehow always belonged to him” (Rooney 242). Later, Connell also admires the power he has over her, thinking of “this hold over her” like “a key to an empty property, left available for future use” (Rooney 255). Marianne reinforces Connell’s feelings of inferiority through her flippant relationship with money, which Connell counters by thinking of her body as property, while still admiring her mind.

Marianne and Connell are attracted to each other’s minds even more than their bodies. These characters are “sapiosexuals,” which Sam Waterman defines as “an intense sexual attraction to intelligent people or to intelligence itself” (232). Connell describes Marianne as “really smart, a lot smarter than me,” to his therapist, at the same time Marianne tells her friends that Connell is “smarter than I am” (Rooney 92, 223). More so than admiration, Marianne and Connell become attracted to each other’s intelligence, which is highlighted in the increasing overlap between sex and dialogue. Indeed, Rooney writes, “The conversations that follow [sex] are gratifying for Connell, often taking unexpected turns and prompting him to express ideas he had never consciously formulated before” (100). For both Marianne and Connell, the boundaries between sex and dialogue get blurred, as the two often happen simultaneously, in quick succession, or by causation. Connell, “knowing that they’ll probably have sex again before they sleep,” thinks that “probably makes the talking more pleasurable, and he suspects that the intimacy of their discussions, often moving back and forth from the conceptual to the personal, also makes the sex feel better” (Rooney 101). Their minds are as much part of their sexual relations as are their bodies, strengthening the connection between the mind and body. Marianne and Connell both engage in these heartfelt exchanges equally, which are the key to relieving, and even healing, their traumas.

Waterman views Marianne and Connell’s relationship through an economical lens, arguing that “sapiosex becomes the affective site where both Marianne and Connell find themselves symbolically above the pressures of training and work in the formal economy,” further explaining that “intelligence has a material leveling effect on Connell’s status in Dublin’s upper-middle-class social circles” (252, 254-255). However, its primary purpose is not an economical one, but rather one that highlights an important way in which these characters heal their trauma. Winnicott explains that in highly intelligent people, the “False Self” tends to take up residence in the mind. In turn this “develops a dissociation between intellectual activity and psycho-somatic existence” (144). I take this to mean that Marianne and Connell’s conversations during sex should be unrelated, or else completely void of substance or feeling. However, a contradiction arises here: Connell and Marianne have meaningful conversations during intimate moments, when they should not. Perhaps their sapiosex helps them to work through their trauma, an instance where the “True Self” comes out, precisely when it is supposed to retreat and let the body do the talking. Hence, their sapiosex is a trauma response, but not a negative one. It is a means for Marianne and Connell to fight the disconnection between their minds and bodies, precisely by not allowing that disconnect to pervade intimate moments. This gratifying and nourishing shift in their relationship allows them to heal their own trauma, as well as each other’s.

Trauma plays an integral role in Marianne and Connell’s relationship in Normal People. The difference in how trauma manifests between the two characters displays how trauma in some is cyclical and recurring, as it is for Marianne, while for others trauma is systemic and situational, as is the case with Connell. Trauma does not have to be caused by a ‘shock’ as Caruth posits, but can instead have muddy beginnings. It may stem from a childhood inability to strengthen the “True Self,” which cannot always be managed by the doting mother, as Connell portrays. A dissociation between the mind and body can form in response, which then acts as a reinforcing cycle. It is because of their sapiosexual relationship, which strengthens the relationship between the mind and body, that Marianne and Connell begin to heal in the face of trauma. Ultimately, they break the cycle through the power of Connection: between mind and body, ‘True’ and ‘False’ Self, and perhaps most importantly, each other.

Works Cited

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Rooney, Sally. Normal People. Hogarth, 2020.

Suleiman, Susan Rubin. “Judith Herman and Contemporary Trauma Theory.” WSQ: Women’s

Studies Quarterly, vol. 36 no. 1, 2008, p. 276-281. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.0.0016.

Waterman, Sam. “Sally Rooney’s Sapiosexuals.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 63, no. 2, 2022, 230-268. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/909244.

Winnicott, D. W. “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self.” The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, International Universities Press, Inc., 1965, pp. 140-152. University of Pennsylvania, https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Winnicott_EgoDistortion.pdf.

Andrea Tchesnovsky is a senior Comparative Literature major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Born in Bulgaria, she is fluent in four languages and is minoring in Italian as her fifth. Other than writing, Andrea enjoys reading, photography, yoga, and traveling.

You can find her on Instagram @andreatchesnovsky.