What if our favourite things are doing us more harm than good?
Investigating how audiences lose their sense of identity through fictional characters and storylines.
I first read the book Normal People in the spring of 2020, shortly after being diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a condition that caused my hormones to fluctuate, leaving me even more emotional than I already was before. Looking back, it likely wasn’t the best choice for a pleasurable, feel-good read. It also didn’t help that we were amidst a global lockdown, and I was stuck at home with little to no social interaction. Despite this, I turned to literature for a sense of belonging, and during some of the most pivotal years of my teenage development, I found myself in the words of a Sally Rooney novel.
We engage with media—books, films, TV shows—not just for entertainment but to seek refuge from the chaos of our daily lives and escape for a moment. But sometimes the worlds we escape to creep back into our realities. The characters, storylines, and even emotions become eerily familiar, leaving us to wonder if we’re also losing ourselves in them. This phenomenon is what cultural studies research would call “identification,” defined as “a mechanism through which audience members experience reception and interpretation of the text from the inside as if the events were happening to them.”
The first time I experienced identification was in my second year of university. I had just moved away from home and broken up with my first long-term boyfriend. In an attempt to feel better about myself, I watched Hulu’s adaptation of Normal People. A bold choice, considering the show’s emotional storylines, but one I made nonetheless. I had read the novel already, about two years prior, and knew exactly what I was getting myself into. Or so I thought. What I was not prepared for, however, was just how much I had become a reflection of the main characters.
I ended up binge-watching the miniseries in less than a day, accompanied by a fresh box of Kleenex and a pint of caramel-flavoured ice cream. The series follows Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal) as they navigate the complexities of young love and growing up. As I watched the show, I became acutely aware of the similarities between the fictional story and my present-day reality. Within that year, I too had fallen in love, started university, left my family, and fallen out of love again. As I progressed through each episode, I quickly realized that my identity was becoming synonymous with the characters and I wondered if there was still a unique soul inside me, or if perhaps I had become an amalgamation of all the characters I’ve ever loved.
Connell and Marianne grapple with complex issues of identity, belonging, and self-worth: topics that resonate deeply with audiences worldwide. Viewers may identify with Connell’s internal struggles with self-doubt and insecurity, or with Marianne’s quest for autonomy and acceptance. However, as audiences immerse themselves in the lives of these characters, they risk losing sight of their own identities in the process. Over-identification may blur the lines between reality and fiction, which fosters unrealistic expectations and dissatisfaction with one’s own life.
About a year later, in the spring of 2024, I booked a ten-day trip across Ireland. I would be lying if I said the reason behind the trip had nothing to do with my love for Normal People. I carried that book around like it was my bible—flipping through the pages on long train rides or at local public parks—as if somehow it would give me all the answers I desired. On my first day in Dublin, I walked around Trinity College, and I remember experiencing a distinct nostalgia for a life I’d never lived. That is the life of Connell and Marianne. As I stood there in front of the same college buildings as they did, I felt like I had become a version of them.
Our identity is heavily shaped by the people we surround ourselves with. When Connell leaves Sligo to study in Dublin, his world gets flipped upside down. He soon discovers just how big the world is and how small his place in it is. When he sees Marianne thriving in the college lifestyle, he enters a state of self-pity, wondering how it is he’s fallen so off the beaten path. He no longer had the people on whom he based his self-identity, and for the first time in his life, he was forced to find those answers on his own. Similarly, as a viewer, I realized I was being shaped by Connell and Marianne, too.
I felt like Marianne in different ways, finding myself in toxic relationships, questioning my self-worth, and retreating inward when I should have reached out. Her emotional intensity became my own, and as I navigated my troubles with relationships, I noticed how certain behaviours and decisions from her character crept into my reality. It was around this time that I realized I was becoming just as sad as the show was, and truthfully, I enjoyed feeling that way because it meant I was just like them.
However, spending a significant amount of time vicariously living through fictional narratives may detract from engaging with and addressing one’s life challenges and opportunities. The act of identifying with characters like Connell and Marianne can indeed offer solace, but it can also lead to the dangerous blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction. Through these experiences, I realized the importance of finding the balance between the worlds of the stories I love and the real life I must live. While our favourite stories and characters can offer comfort, they can also keep us from fully engaging with our reality—reminding us that sometimes the things we love most can do us more harm than good if we let them define us too deeply.
Arts & Entertainment Editor (Volume 51); Staff Writer (Volume 50) — Keira is going into her fourth year at UTM pursuing a double major in Communications, Culture, Information, and Technology (CCIT) and Professional Writing and Communications (PWC). When she’s not working or studying, you can find her nose deep in a good literary fiction novel, writing movie reviews on Letterboxd, or even training for the marathon that never seems to actually happen! You can connect with Keira on Instagram or LinkedIn.