A Monster Calls

The First Calling

Conor O'Malley is a thirteen-year-old boy living in England with his terminally ill mother. His life has become a carefully constructed routine of school, hospital visits, and a recurring nightmare that haunts him each night—a nightmare so terrible he cannot bring himself to speak of it to anyone. Seven minutes past midnight, Conor is awakened not by his nightmare but by something entirely unexpected: a monster has come calling. However, this is not the monster from his dreams. Instead, an enormous yew tree from the nearby churchyard has transformed into a walking, talking creature that crashes through his bedroom window.

The Monster, ancient and powerful, announces that it has come to tell Conor three stories, and when it has finished, Conor must tell a fourth—the truth, his own story, the nightmare that plagues him. Conor, surprisingly unafraid of this monster, dismisses it initially, insisting he isn't scared and doesn't need whatever the Monster has come to offer. The Monster finds this amusing and disturbing in equal measure, noting that most people would be terrified. It declares that it will return at the same time to tell its first tale, and Conor will listen.

The Monster's presence coincides with Conor's mother's worsening condition. She has been fighting cancer for years, and the latest treatment isn't working. Conor's life is further complicated by the arrival of his strict grandmother, a woman with whom he shares little connection, and the notable absence of his father, who has started a new family in America. At school, Conor faces isolation and the threat of a bully named Harry, though strangely, after Conor's mother's illness becomes common knowledge, Harry begins ignoring him entirely—a situation Conor finds worse than the actual bullying because it makes him invisible.

Three Tales and Their Truths

The Monster returns as promised and tells Conor its first story about a prince whose stepmother, a queen, is accused of witchcraft and murder after the prince's true love mysteriously dies. The kingdom demands the queen's execution, but the Monster reveals a twist: the prince himself was responsible for his lover's death so he could inherit the kingdom, and the queen, though a witch, was actually trying to save the girl. The Monster helped the prince, not the "good" queen. Conor is disturbed by this moral ambiguity, expecting a clear tale of good versus evil. The Monster simply states that this is how the story goes.

As Conor's mother continues to deteriorate, spending more time in the hospital, the Monster arrives with its second tale. This story concerns an apothecary—a healer and parson—whose greed leads him to hoard his knowledge and refuse to help others unless they can pay. When the Monster's tree is threatened by the parson, who wants to expand his holdings, the Monster destroys the parson's house and possessions, leaving only his two daughters unharmed. Again, Conor expects a clear moral, but the Monster reveals that the apothecary learned nothing and continued his greedy ways. The story offers no satisfying resolution, no redemption, only the complicated truth that people rarely change and life rarely offers neat endings.

Between these supernatural visits, Conor's real world crumbles. He learns he will have to live with his grandmother if—when—his mother dies. His father visits from America but makes it clear he cannot take Conor back with him, as his new family doesn't have room. At school, the invisible treatment from Harry finally breaks, leading to a violent confrontation where Conor, unleashing all his suppressed rage and pain, nearly beats Harry to death. The school's reaction is muted; they see a boy in crisis rather than a perpetrator, which only increases Conor's frustration. He wants punishment, consequences, something to make his pain real and acknowledged.

The Final Truth

The Monster's third tale is surprisingly brief. It tells of an invisible man who felt unseen his entire life, who called out for attention but was ignored. One day, the invisible man decided to make sure everyone would see him, so he called for a monster. Conor realizes immediately that this story is about him—he is the invisible man who called for the Monster. But Conor insists this isn't the truth the Monster wants; the real truth is his nightmare.

As his mother's final hours approach, Conor is brought to the hospital. The medical staff and his family give them privacy, and in this devastating moment, the Monster comes for the last time. It demands Conor's story, the truth he has been avoiding. Conor finally breaks down and reveals his nightmare: in it, he is holding his mother's hand as she dangles over a precipice, trying to save her, but the nightmare always ends the same way—he lets go. Not because his grip fails, but because he chooses to release her hand.

"You were merely wishing for the end of pain," the Monster said. "Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all."

Conor is consumed by guilt, believing he is a terrible person for wanting his mother's suffering—and by extension, his own suffering—to end. The Monster helps Conor understand that holding two contradictory truths is part of being human: he desperately wants his mother to live, and he desperately wants the pain to stop, even if that means she must die. These opposing desires can coexist; acknowledging the second doesn't negate the first or make him a monster. The Monster explains that it came not to heal Conor's mother—the yew tree's healing properties cannot save her—but to heal Conor himself, to help him face and accept this unbearable truth.

In the final scene, Conor sits with his dying mother and tells her it's okay to let go, that he understands, even though it isn't okay and never will be. His mother passes away peacefully, and Conor, having finally spoken his truth, begins the long process of learning to live with his grief and guilt. The Monster's final gift is not a miracle cure or a happy ending, but rather the strength to face the most complicated and painful truth of all: that life contains contradictions, that love and loss are intertwined, and that survival sometimes means accepting what cannot be changed.

Conor O'Malley

Conor O'Malley is a thirteen-year-old boy thrust into an impossible situation, forced to navigate the complex terrain between childhood and maturity while his mother battles terminal cancer. Patrick Ness creates in Conor a protagonist who is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary—a boy dealing with universal adolescent challenges while confronting the most devastating loss imaginable. What makes Conor such a compelling character is his profound internal conflict: he is angry, terrified, guilty, and desperately lonely, yet he attempts to maintain a fa?ade of normalcy and control.

Throughout the novel, Conor's most defining characteristic is his struggle with truth and denial. He has recurring nightmares about his mother's death, yet he refuses to acknowledge what he knows deep down—that she will not survive her illness. This psychological defense mechanism manifests in his interactions with the monster, who arrives not to save his mother, but to help Conor face the truth he cannot bear to accept. His famous statement, "I do not want you to save her. I want you to make it so that I never have to," reveals the depth of his emotional turmoil and the impossible burden he carries.

Conor's anger is perhaps his most visible trait, erupting in violent outbursts that shock those around him. When he destroys his grandmother's sitting room or when he beats Harry at school, these acts of destruction represent his desperate attempt to externalize the chaos consuming him internally. Significantly, Conor wants to be punished for these acts, seeking consequences that might match the magnitude of what he perceives as his greatest transgression—wanting his suffering to end, even if it means his mother's death. This guilt becomes the novel's emotional core, and Conor's journey toward accepting this human, understandable desire forms the heart of his character arc.

By the novel's conclusion, Conor undergoes a profound transformation. The monster's final tale forces him to confront his nightmare and speak the truth he has been suppressing: "I can't stand it anymore!" This moment of vulnerability and honesty, when he finally admits his exhaustion and conflicting desires, represents his emergence into a more mature understanding of grief, love, and human complexity. Conor learns that holding contradictory feelings simultaneously—loving his mother desperately while wanting his pain to end—doesn't make him a monster; it makes him achingly, beautifully human.

The Monster (The Yew Tree)

The monster is far more than a supernatural entity; it serves as a complex symbol of truth, storytelling, the natural world, and the bridge between life and death. Manifesting from the ancient yew tree visible from Conor's window, the monster arrives at 12:07 past midnight with a purpose that defies Conor's expectations. Unlike conventional monsters that inspire fear, this creature comes as a healer, teacher, and ultimately, a companion through Conor's darkest hours.

The monster's appearance is deliberately paradoxical—ancient yet vital, terrifying yet comforting, destructive yet nurturing. Composed of bark, branches, and leaves, it embodies the yew tree's historical associations with both death and healing, churchyards and medicine. This duality perfectly mirrors the novel's central themes and Conor's internal conflict. The monster's declaration—"I am not a messenger of God. I am the cure, the medicine"—establishes its role not as a miracle worker who will save Conor's mother, but as the force that will help Conor heal from the wound of unspoken truth.

What makes the monster particularly fascinating is its moral complexity. The three tales it tells deliberately subvert expectations, refusing simple categorizations of good and evil, hero and villain. The monster insists that these ambiguities reflect life's true nature, preparing Conor to accept that his own feelings cannot be neatly categorized as right or wrong. The monster's statement, "There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between," challenges both Conor and readers to embrace moral and emotional complexity.

The monster's ultimate purpose is revealed when it demands Conor's truth—the fourth tale. In this moment, the monster transforms from teacher to witness, creating the safe space Conor needs to finally articulate his unbearable secret. The monster's presence during Conor's mother's final moments, visible only to Conor, provides the strength and support the boy needs to let go. As a character, the monster represents the power of storytelling itself to process grief, the necessity of facing painful truths, and the companion we sometimes need to walk us through impossible circumstances.

Conor's Mother

Conor's mother is a character defined largely by her absence and deterioration, yet she remains a powerful presence throughout the novel. Her terminal illness is the catalyst for all events, but Patrick Ness ensures she is more than simply "the dying mother"—she is a young woman fighting desperately for life, attempting to maintain normalcy for her son, and struggling with her own fear and exhaustion. Her characterization is rendered more poignant because we see her through Conor's eyes, as both the strong mother he needs and the fragile patient she has become.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of her character is her determination to protect Conor from the full weight of her condition. She attempts to maintain routines, speaks optimistically about treatments, and tries to shield him from her worst moments. However, this protective instinct creates distance between them precisely when they need connection most. Conor notices the changes—her increasing weakness, her hair loss, her forced cheerfulness—and this awareness, combined with their inability to speak honestly about her prognosis, intensifies his isolation and fear.

Her physical transformation throughout the novel serves as a brutal timeline of cancer's progression. Ness doesn't shy away from the harsh realities: the treatments that make her violently ill, the exhaustion that keeps her in bed, the gradual wasting of her body. When Conor sees her after a hospitalization, he barely recognizes her, describing her as "like a photograph of his mum, rather than his actual mum." This observation captures both the disease's devastating physical impact and the psychological difficulty of watching a loved one become unrecognizable.

Despite limited direct appearances in the narrative, Conor's mother's character embodies unconditional love and the cruel unfairness of terminal illness. Her youth—she is still in her twenties—makes her fate even more tragic. In the novel's final scenes, when she can barely speak, she uses her remaining energy to tell Conor that she doesn't want to go, revealing her own desperate desire for life. This honesty, finally achieved, allows them both to acknowledge the truth and say goodbye. Her character ultimately represents not just loss, but the profound love between mother and child that persists even as death approaches.

Grandma (Conor's Grandmother)

Conor's grandmother is initially presented as a distant, formal figure who represents everything foreign and uncomfortable to the young protagonist. Living in a pristine house filled with antiques and maintaining rigid standards of behavior, she seems incapable of providing the warmth and understanding Conor desperately needs. Her insistence on being called "Grandma" rather than a more affectionate term, her disapproval of mess, and her structured approach to life create friction between them, making her seem like an antagonist in Conor's story.

However, as the novel progresses, layers of complexity emerge in her characterization. Beneath her stern exterior lies a woman facing her own devastating grief—watching her daughter die while simultaneously trying to provide stability for her grandson. Her rigidity and formality are revealed as coping mechanisms, ways of maintaining control when everything is falling apart. When Conor destroys her sitting room, her reaction—hurt, exhausted, and overwhelmed rather than purely angry—reveals her vulnerability and the tremendous burden she carries.

The grandmother's character arc involves learning to bridge the emotional distance between herself and Conor. She struggles to understand a boy so different from her daughter, to communicate across generational and temperamental divides, and to offer comfort when she herself is breaking. Her attempts at normalcy—enrolling Conor in school, maintaining routines, preparing meals—represent her way of showing love, even if Conor cannot initially recognize it as such. She lacks the natural ease with children that might make this transition smoother, but her determination to care for him is unwavering.

By the novel's conclusion, a tentative understanding develops between them. Grandma's forgiveness after Conor's destructive rampage, her presence at the hospital, and her quiet support during his mother's final moments demonstrate her capacity for compassion despite her rigid demeanor. She recognizes that Conor needs to be with his mother at the end and facilitates this crucial goodbye. Her character represents the imperfect but genuine love of family, the struggle of grief across generations, and the possibility of connection even between seemingly incompatible people. She will be Conor's future, his new family, and though neither finds this ideal, both are willing to try.

Harry

Harry serves as Conor's primary antagonist at school, but Patrick Ness crafts him as more than a simple bully. Harry represents the social cruelty that often surrounds illness and difference, the way communities sometimes isolate those experiencing tragedy rather than offering support. His bullying of Conor follows an unusual pattern—it is not violent or overtly aggressive, but rather insidious and psychological. Harry leads the school in a campaign of invisibility, ensuring that Conor is ignored, excluded, and treated as though he doesn't exist.

What makes Harry particularly interesting is the calculated nature of his cruelty. He understands that ignoring someone can be more painful than active persecution, and he wields this social power with precision. His treatment of Conor is described as making him invisible, which in many ways is more isolating than physical bullying would be. Harry knows that teachers are watching for obvious bullying and adjusts his tactics accordingly, demonstrating a manipulative intelligence that makes him a formidable antagonist despite his youth.

The dynamic between Conor and Harry shifts dramatically when Conor finally snaps and violently beats Harry. Significantly, Harry's reaction is complex—he is genuinely frightened by Conor's rage and the violence of the attack. This moment reveals Harry as more than a one-dimensional bully; he is also a thirteen-year-old boy confronted with something he doesn't understand and cannot control. His fear of Conor afterward suggests that his bullying may have stemmed partly from discomfort with Conor's situation, a childish inability to process the reality of terminal illness affecting a peer.

Harry's character ultimately serves multiple functions in the narrative. He represents the social isolation that often accompanies grief, the inadequacy of peer support when tragedy strikes, and the complex social dynamics of adolescence. His invisibility campaign, paradoxically, is what Conor sometimes desires—to be left alone, to not be pitied or treated differently. Yet it also demonstrates the cruelty of abandonment. Harry embodies the outside world's failure to properly support Conor, showing how society often fails children in crisis, leaving them to navigate impossible situations alone.

Lily Andrews

Lily Andrews occupies a unique and painful position in Conor's life—she is his former best friend, the person who knows his secret, and someone he both needs and resents. Before his mother's illness became common knowledge, Conor confided in Lily, sharing his fear and vulnerability. However, when Lily told her mother, who told others, Conor's private tragedy became public knowledge. This betrayal, though well-intentioned on Lily's part, destroyed their friendship and added another layer of loss to Conor's experience.

Lily's character represents the complicated nature of support and privacy, good intentions and their unintended consequences. She told her mother because she was worried and didn't know how else to help—a reasonable response for a thirteen-year-old facing information too big to carry alone. However, from Conor's perspective, this was an unforgivable violation of trust. His secret was the one thing he could control in an increasingly uncontrollable situation, and Lily took that agency from him. Her action, though motivated by concern, resulted in the pitying looks, the careful treatment, and the social isolation that Conor experiences at school.

Throughout the novel, Lily continues to reach out to Conor despite his rejection. She sits with him at lunch even when he refuses to acknowledge her, demonstrating a loyalty and care that persists beyond his anger. Her persistence suggests genuine affection and concern, as well as her own guilt over the breach of confidence. She represents the would-be supporters in Conor's life, the people who want to help but don't know how, whose attempts at comfort are rebuffed because Conor's pain is too great to share.

Lily's character also highlights the social complexities of adolescence during crisis. As Conor's former best friend, she occupies an ambiguous position—too close to be a stranger, too distant after the betrayal to be trusted. Her continued presence in his life, even at the margins, suggests that reconciliation might be possible, that relationships can survive breaches of trust, and that support sometimes means simply staying present even when pushed away. Though a relatively minor character in terms of page time, Lily represents the friendships that strain under the weight of tragedy and the question of whether they can be repaired.

Conor's Father

Conor's father is a character defined by absence, distance, and the complicated emotions surrounding parental abandonment and remarriage. Having moved to America and started a new family, he exists on the periphery of Conor's life, connected by occasional phone calls and rare visits. When he does appear in the novel, traveling to England during his ex-wife's health crisis, he embodies both the hope for rescue that Conor unconsciously harbors and the inevitable disappointment when that rescue doesn't materialize.

The father's characterization reveals a man struggling with his own limitations and failures. He is not portrayed as villainous, but rather as someone who has moved on with his life, created new commitments, and lacks the capacity or willingness to fully re-engage with his first family's crisis. During his visit, he takes Conor out, attempts normalcy through activities and conversation, but ultimately reveals that Conor cannot come live with him in America. This rejection, delivered with excuses about his new wife, new baby, and the impracticality of the arrangement, devastates Conor even though the boy had not consciously hoped for this outcome.

What makes this character particularly effective is how Patrick Ness presents him as neither wholly sympathetic nor entirely condemnable. The father clearly cares about Conor, feels guilty about the situation, and is genuinely distressed by his ex-wife's illness. However, his care and concern have limits—limits defined by his new life, his current family, and his unwillingness to sacrifice his own comfort and stability. He represents the painful truth that love and commitment are not always unconditional, that adults can fail children, and that some absences cannot be remedied.

The father's role in the narrative ultimately reinforces Conor's isolation and the reality that he must face his mother's death without the parental support structure most children take for granted. His inability to offer Conor a home or genuine refuge eliminates one potential escape route, forcing both Conor and readers to accept that the grandmother, imperfect as she is, represents Conor's only family future. The father's character serves as a reminder that not all wounds can be healed, not all parents can rise to the occasion, and sometimes the people we hope will save us simply cannot or will not.

The Complexity of Grief and Acceptance

At the heart of "A Monster Calls" lies a profound exploration of grief that refuses to be simplified or sanitized. Patrick Ness presents grief not as a single emotion but as a complex tapestry of conflicting feelings that can torment the bereaved. Conor O'Malley's journey illustrates how grief encompasses not just sadness, but also anger, guilt, denial, and perhaps most disturbingly, the desire for suffering to end—even when that means accepting the death of a loved one.

The novel's most powerful revelation comes when Conor finally admits his truth: he wants his mother's suffering to end, even if it means her death. This uncomfortable reality challenges the conventional narratives about grief, particularly those aimed at young readers. Ness doesn't allow Conor the comfort of pure, uncomplicated love and sadness. Instead, he must confront the guilt of wishing for release from the exhausting emotional labor of watching his mother deteriorate. The monster forces Conor to speak this truth aloud, acknowledging that wanting the pain to end doesn't mean he loves his mother any less.

The theme extends beyond individual grief to examine how society handles death and dying. Characters around Conor—his grandmother, his father, even his teachers—struggle to address his situation directly. They offer platitudes, maintain uncomfortable silences, or overcompensate with inappropriate leniency. This social awkwardness surrounding death becomes its own form of isolation for Conor, demonstrating how grief separates the bereaved from the normal world. The monster serves as the only entity willing to engage honestly with Conor's pain, refusing to offer false comfort or easy answers.

Ness also explores anticipatory grief—the mourning that occurs before death arrives. Conor exists in a liminal space, unable to fully hope yet unable to completely let go. This suspended state creates its own torture, a prolonged emotional crisis that the novel captures with remarkable sensitivity. The recurring nightmare that Conor experiences symbolizes this in-between existence, representing both his fear of loss and his unconscious recognition that the end is inevitable.

The Power and Ambiguity of Stories

Patrick Ness employs metafictional elements throughout "A Monster Calls" to examine storytelling itself as a fundamental human mechanism for processing reality. The monster's three tales deliberately subvert Conor's—and the reader's—expectations about heroes, villains, and moral clarity. Each story begins with what appears to be a traditional fairy tale structure, only to reveal uncomfortable truths about human nature and the inadequacy of simple narratives to capture life's complexity.

The first tale about the prince and the queen exemplifies this technique. Initially, readers expect the prince to be heroic and the stepmother-queen to be villainous, following fairy tale conventions. However, the revelation that the prince murdered his beloved to claim the throne and that the queen was actually protective of the kingdom upends these expectations. The monster explicitly states that the prince was punished not for his crime, but because he allowed the queen to be blamed for it. This story teaches Conor that real life rarely offers the clear-cut moral categories found in traditional tales.

The second tale continues this pattern with the apothecary and the parson, where the "good" parson's rigid beliefs make him cruel while the "greedy" apothecary shows genuine compassion. Through these inversions, Ness suggests that stories can trap us in false binaries—good versus evil, hero versus villain—that prevent us from seeing the messy truth of human motivation. People contain multitudes; they can be simultaneously selfish and generous, cruel and kind.

"Stories are the wildest things of all. Stories chase and bite and hunt."

The monster's insistence that stories matter more than facts reflects their psychological power. Stories shape how we understand ourselves and our experiences. They provide frameworks for meaning-making, even when—perhaps especially when—reality resists neat interpretation. Conor must ultimately tell his own story, the nightmare he's been suppressing, to achieve healing. This act of narration, of putting words to his deepest fears and most shameful desires, becomes transformative. Ness suggests that we cannot fully process trauma until we can story it, until we can give it narrative shape and speak it into existence.

Isolation and Connection

Conor's profound isolation permeates every aspect of the novel, creating a suffocating atmosphere that readers can almost physically feel. His isolation operates on multiple levels: the practical isolation of his mother's illness consuming all attention and energy; the social isolation created by his peers' fear and discomfort around death; and the emotional isolation of bearing feelings he believes are unspeakable and unforgivable.

Ness depicts how illness doesn't just affect the patient but radiates outward, disrupting all relationships. Conor's father has literally distanced himself, creating a new life in America with a new family. His grandmother remains emotionally distant, unable to bridge the gap between her generation's stoicism and Conor's need for honest communication. Even his mother, though loving, becomes increasingly unreachable as her illness progresses, her attention necessarily turning inward to her own survival. The novel powerfully illustrates how serious illness creates an invisible barrier, placing the patient and their immediate family in a separate realm that others cannot enter.

The bullying Conor endures from Harry and his gang represents another dimension of isolation. Paradoxically, Conor experiences their later avoidance of him as worse than their active torment. The bullying at least acknowledged his existence; their subsequent fear-driven distance makes him feel invisible, as though he's already becoming a ghost. Ness captures the desperate quality of Conor's desire to be seen when he provokes Harry into fighting him, preferring pain and punishment to the unbearable nothingness of being ignored.

The monster serves as the antidote to this isolation—a presence that sees Conor completely and refuses to turn away. Significantly, the monster comes from the yew tree Conor can see from his window, originating from his own view, his own mind. This suggests that connection and healing, while they may require external catalysts, ultimately come from within. The monster insists on Conor's truth, demanding that he articulate what he cannot tell anyone else. This witnessing becomes a form of profound connection, allowing Conor to be fully known without being destroyed by judgment. Through the monster, Ness illustrates that genuine connection requires the courage to be vulnerable and the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths rather than retreating into polite fictions.

Magical Realism and Symbolism

Patrick Ness employs magical realism masterfully throughout "A Monster Calls," blending the supernatural seamlessly with gritty reality to create a narrative space where psychological truths can be externalized and confronted. The monster itself exists in the liminal space between real and imagined, and Ness deliberately maintains this ambiguity. The destruction the monster causes—the demolished living room, the wrecked grandmother's house—could be explained either as the monster's doing or as Conor's own rage made manifest. This uncertainty is precisely the point; the monster represents Conor's internal emotional landscape given external form.

The yew tree from which the monster emerges carries deep symbolic weight. Traditionally planted in churchyards, yew trees have long been associated with death and resurrection due to their longevity and ability to regenerate. However, yew trees also contain both poison and healing properties—their needles and seeds are toxic, while compounds from their bark have been used in cancer treatment. This duality perfectly mirrors the novel's central themes: death and life intertwined, poison and cure coexisting, the monster being simultaneously terrifying and healing.

Jim Kay's illustrations, integrated throughout the text, enhance the magical realist approach. The visual representation of the monster—massive, ancient, composed of wood and leaves—gives it a physical presence that reinforces its reality within the story's world while maintaining its symbolic nature. The illustrations blur the boundary between text and image, reality and imagination, much as the narrative itself blurs the boundary between the supernatural and the psychological.

Conor's recurring nightmare functions as another crucial symbolic element. The nightmare features Conor holding onto his mother's hand as she dangles over a chasm, her slipping grip representing his desperate attempt to keep her alive. The nightmare's terrible conclusion—that Conor lets go—symbolizes his unconscious acceptance of her death and his guilt over that acceptance. The ground giving way beneath his mother represents the failure of solid ground, the loss of stability that death brings to a child's world. That the nightmare transforms into a sinkhole that threatens to swallow everything reflects how grief can feel all-consuming, capable of destroying one's entire existence.

"Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary."

This psychological insight, delivered by the monster, captures the novel's sophisticated understanding of how humans cope with unbearable reality. The magical realism of the narrative embodies this very principle—Conor needs the "comforting lie" of the monster to access the "painful truth" of his own feelings. The fantastic elements aren't escapism but rather a necessary framework for confronting what realistic narrative alone might not allow.

Time and Impermanence

Ness structures "A Monster Calls" around the relentless progression of time, creating an almost unbearable sense of inevitability. The monster arrives at 12:07 past midnight—a specific, recurring time that marks the boundary between days, between one state and another. This precise timing emphasizes time's mechanical progression, indifferent to human suffering. No matter how much Conor wishes to stop time, to freeze his mother in her current state or return to the past when she was healthy, the clock continues its march toward 12:07 and beyond.

The novel's present-tense narration intensifies this temporal immediacy. Rather than looking back on events from a safe distance, readers experience Conor's ordeal as it unfolds, trapped with him in the ongoing present with no guarantee of future relief. This narrative choice makes the reading experience more visceral and uncomfortable, denying readers the comfort of knowing that events have passed and have been survived.

Treatment schedules and hospital appointments punctuate the narrative, measuring time in medical intervals rather than natural rhythms. Conor's life becomes organized around his mother's treatment calendar—the days when she has enough energy to seem almost normal versus the days when treatment leaves her devastated. This medicalized time creates a strange suspension of normal life, where school and ordinary activities continue but feel increasingly irrelevant beside the primary reality of his mother's illness.

The monster's ancient nature contrasts sharply with Conor's acute temporal crisis. The monster has existed for millennia, has walked the earth since before humans built churches, has seen countless lives begin and end. This vast temporal perspective offers both comfort and terror—comfort in that Conor's pain, however intense, is part of a larger human pattern, but terror in the reminder that this pattern has repeated endlessly and will continue regardless of individual suffering. The monster's timelessness highlights the bitter irony of Conor's situation: that his mother's time is running out precisely when she should have decades remaining.

Ness also explores the compression and expansion of time that grief creates. Moments of hope—when his mother seems better, when treatment appears to be working—stretch out, feeling almost normal. But these moments collapse in an instant when new symptoms appear or test results disappoint. Conversely, the time between diagnosis and death, which might objectively be months, feels simultaneously too fast (not enough time to prepare, to say everything that needs saying) and agonizingly slow (endless suffering with no relief). This temporal distortion reflects the authentic experience of anticipatory grief, where time becomes elastic and unreliable.

Truth, Lies, and Invisible Visibility

One of the novel's most sophisticated themes involves the paradoxical relationship between truth and lies, particularly the concept the monster articulates as being "invisible" while simultaneously hypervisible. Conor becomes paradoxically invisible to his peers after his mother's diagnosis becomes known—they avoid him, stop inviting him to activities, create awkward distance. Yet he also becomes hypervisible, marked as "the kid whose mom is dying," defined entirely by his tragedy rather than seen as a complete person.

This dual state reflects a common experience of grief and trauma: being simultaneously too much for people to handle (and thus avoided) while also having one's full humanity rendered invisible beneath the single identity of "the grieving one." Conor desperately wants to be seen normally, not through the filter of pity or fear, yet he also carries a truth so large it seems to eclipse everything else about him. Ness captures this impossible position with remarkable nuance, showing how social awkwardness around death can create profound isolation.

The novel distinguishes between different types of truth and lies. There are the comforting lies that Conor tells himself and that others tell him—that his mother will get better, that everything will be fine. These lies serve a psychological function, allowing him to continue functioning day-to-day. The monster acknowledges this necessity, noting that minds need comforting lies to coexist with unbearable truths. However, the monster insists on a different kind of truth—the emotional truth of Conor's actual feelings, including the ones that shame and terrify him.

"You do not write your life with words, you write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do."

This statement from the monster complicates the theme of truth further. Conor's unspoken desire for his mother's suffering to end doesn't make him a bad person because he doesn't act on it maliciously; rather, his actions toward his mother remain loving and supportive. The monster draws a crucial distinction between internal thoughts and feelings (which may be dark, contradictory, or shameful but are ultimately natural) and external actions (which define one's character). This wisdom offers Conor—and readers—a framework for self-forgiveness, acknowledging that having difficult feelings doesn't negate one's love or goodness.

The monster's own tales explore how public narratives can obscure truth. The queen punished for supposedly murdering her husband actually tried to save him; the apothecary considered greedy actually showed compassion. These stories suggest that the "truth" accepted by communities and recorded in history may bear little relationship to actual truth. They warn against accepting simple stories and encourage looking beneath surface narratives to find complex, often contradictory realities. In Conor's case, the simple story—loving son desperately wants mother to live—obscures the fuller truth: loving son wants mother to live but also wants the unbearable pain to end, wants his own suffering to cease, wants permission to imagine a future beyond this endless present of decline and loss.

Destruction as Creation and Healing

Perhaps the most unexpected theme in "A Monster Calls" is the idea that destruction can be necessary for healing, that sometimes things must be torn down before they can be rebuilt. The monster's repeated acts of destruction—tearing apart Conor's grandmother's living room, demolishing her house's fittings, destroying the possessions she values—serve a psychological function beyond simple catharsis. They represent the necessary dismantling of a life and identity that can no longer hold.

Conor's world is crumbling whether he acknowledges it or not. His mother is dying, his home will be lost, his relationship with his grandmother will necessarily deepen and change, his childhood is ending prematurely. The monster's destruction externalizes this internal collapse, making it visible and undeniable. By destroying physical objects, the monster allows Conor to confront the destruction already occurring in his emotional landscape. The physical mess mirrors and validates the psychological devastation Conor is experiencing.

There's also a element of agency in this destruction. Conor is powerless to prevent his mother's death, powerless to control how his father behaves, powerless to manage other people's reactions to his situation. But when the monster destroys, Conor participates—he is active rather than passive, making choices rather than having life happen to him. This agency, even in destruction, offers a form of empowerment to someone who has been rendered helpless by circumstances.

The clock that Conor destroys holds particular symbolic significance. His grandfather's clock represents time itself, and also represents the old order—his grandmother's pristine, controlled household, the possessions she values more than mess or spontaneity, the life she knew before her daughter's illness disrupted everything. By destroying the clock, Conor symbolically rebels against time's tyranny, strikes back at the force carrying his mother toward death. The act is futile—time continues regardless—but it's also necessary, an expression of rage that has nowhere else to go.

Ultimately, the novel suggests that Conor must let his old understanding of the world be destroyed to make space for a new understanding that includes death and loss. The child who believed mothers don't die,

Narrative Structure and Point of View

Patrick Ness employs a deceptively simple third-person limited narrative perspective that follows thirteen-year-old Conor O'Malley, creating an intimate yet controlled emotional distance that mirrors the protagonist's own psychological defense mechanisms. This narrative choice proves particularly effective in exploring themes of grief, denial, and acceptance, as readers experience Conor's emotional journey while simultaneously observing his resistance to confronting his mother's terminal illness. The structure oscillates between the mundane reality of Conor's daily life—school bullying, household tensions, medical appointments—and the fantastical midnight visits from the ancient yew tree monster, creating a dual narrative that functions on both literal and metaphorical levels.

The novel's organization around the monster's three tales, plus Conor's eventual fourth story, provides a framework that builds toward inevitable revelation. Each of the monster's stories subverts traditional fairy tale expectations, refusing to offer clear moral distinctions between heroes and villains. The prince who kills the witch might actually be the villain; the apothecary who destroys a man's home and livelihood is simultaneously justified and cruel; the invisible man chooses invisibility rather than having it forced upon him. This structural pattern prepares both Conor and the reader for the complexity of truth that the fourth story will demand—that Conor can simultaneously love his mother desperately and wish for his suffering to end, even if that means wishing for her death.

Ness's decision to continue from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, who died before writing the book herself, adds a meta-textual layer to the work's exploration of mortality and legacy. The novel becomes not just a story about death, but a story born from death, a continuation of a voice silenced too soon. This context enriches the reading experience, though the book stands powerfully on its own merits without requiring biographical knowledge.

Symbolism and Allegory

The monster itself operates as the novel's central symbol, embodying multiple interpretative possibilities that resist singular definition. Most obviously, the monster represents Conor's externalized grief and rage—emotions too overwhelming for a thirteen-year-old to process internally. The creature's first appearance at 12:07 a.m., just past midnight, positions it at the threshold between days, between sleeping and waking, between childhood and a forced maturity. The yew tree's traditional associations enhance this symbolism; historically connected to both death (often planted in graveyards) and healing (the cancer drug Taxol derives from yew trees), the tree embodies the paradoxical nature of Conor's situation, where medicine both extends his mother's life and ravages her body.

The monster's insistence on truth—"You will tell me a fourth story. You will tell me the truth"—positions it as both therapist and confessor, a force that will not permit Conor the comfort of continued denial. Yet the monster is also protective and validating, appearing when Conor faces his tormentor Harry at school, granting him supernatural strength during moments of crisis. This duality reflects the dual nature of confronting grief: it is simultaneously destructive and necessary, painful and ultimately healing.

The three tales the monster tells function as allegorical preparation for the psychological truth Conor must acknowledge. Each story teaches that truth is complex, that contradictory feelings can coexist, and that simplistic moral frameworks fail to encompass human experience. The stories progressively move closer to Conor's situation: from historical tales to more contemporary settings, from strangers to people Conor might recognize in his own life. When the monster finally demands Conor's story, the boy has been narratively prepared to articulate the unspeakable—that he wants his suffering to end even though that means losing his mother.

Character Development and Psychological Realism

Conor O'Malley emerges as one of contemporary young adult literature's most psychologically complex protagonists, rendered with remarkable emotional authenticity. Ness avoids sentimentalizing childhood grief, instead presenting Conor's anger, confusion, and contradictory emotions with unflinching honesty. His rage at his grandmother, his deliberate destruction of her sitting room, and his violent outbursts at school are not presented as simply "acting out" but as genuine expressions of a psyche under unbearable strain. The novel validates these responses without excusing them, acknowledging that grief can make us destructive even toward those trying to help us.

The characterization of Conor's mother, despite her limited direct presence in the narrative, achieves depth through carefully chosen details. Her attempts to maintain normalcy—doing the school run despite exhaustion, trying to smile through pain, speaking to Conor about practical matters—reveal a woman trying to parent even as she's dying. The scene where she tells Conor "I'm not going to give up" becomes particularly poignant in retrospect, as readers recognize both her determination and the implied acknowledgment that giving up is a possibility she's already considered. Her characterization avoids the twin pitfalls of making her either a saint or a victim; she remains human, complicated, and real.

Supporting characters are drawn with similar nuance. Conor's grandmother transforms from apparent antagonist to revealed ally, her rigid control and sharp tongue gradually understood as her own grief response. Her emotional breakdown—"I don't know what to do"—humanizes a character initially presented as cold and unfeeling. Harry, the school bully, is denied even the clarity of pure antagonism; his eventual refusal to fight back against Conor's assault removes the cathartic release that violence might have provided, forcing Conor to confront that destruction solves nothing. Even Lily, the former friend who betrayed Conor's confidence, receives complexity through her obvious guilt and attempts at reconciliation.

Thematic Exploration

The novel's central thematic concern—the complexity of truth and the coexistence of contradictory emotions—challenges readers to embrace ambiguity in a culture often demanding simple answers. Through the monster's tales and Conor's eventual confession, Ness argues that humans contain multitudes, that loving someone doesn't preclude simultaneously harboring darker feelings toward them. This theme reaches its apex when Conor admits his recurring nightmare: not of his mother dying, but of letting her go, of failing to hold on when he had the chance. His devastating revelation—"I don't want you to go"—is immediately followed by the truth he can barely whisper: the nightmare ends with relief that his suffering will finally stop.

"You were merely wishing for the end of pain. Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all."

This moment of confession and the monster's acceptance of Conor's "most human wish" provides the novel's emotional and thematic climax. Ness suggests that acknowledging our darkest thoughts doesn't make us monstrous; denying them does. The relief Conor feels isn't about wanting his mother dead—it's about the exhaustion of prolonged anticipatory grief, the isolation of living in suspended animation while everyone around him either offers false hope or prepares for inevitable loss.

The theme of isolation pervades the novel. Conor is isolated by his mother's illness, which marks him as different at school; by his father's absence and new life in America; by his grandmother's emotional reserve; by Lily's betrayal; and most profoundly by his own inability to articulate his feelings. The monster breaks this isolation not through comfort but through demanding honesty. When Conor finally tells his truth, he moves from isolation into connection—first with the monster, then with his grandmother, and finally with his dying mother, whom he can approach without the barrier of denial.

Integration of Text and Illustration

Jim Kay's haunting illustrations are not mere decoration but integral to the novel's narrative and emotional impact. Rendered in black ink and charcoal, the images capture the monster's terrifying grandeur and the emotional turbulence of Conor's inner world. The illustrations often occupy full pages or spreads, demanding that readers pause in the narrative flow, creating a rhythm that mirrors Conor's own experience of time—moving forward, then stopping, then lurching forward again. This pacing reinforces the novel's themes of control and its loss; readers cannot simply rush through to resolution but must inhabit the suspended time of terminal illness.

Kay's visual representation of the monster evolves throughout the book, sometimes appearing almost gentle, at other times overwhelming and terrible. This visual ambiguity mirrors the monster's symbolic complexity—neither simply friend nor foe, neither internal nor external, but something that transcends binary categorization. The illustrations of the three tales the monster tells employ different visual styles, distinguishing them from the primary narrative while maintaining aesthetic cohesion. These visual tales allow readers who might struggle with the stories' moral complexity to process multiple interpretations simultaneously, as the images often emphasize the ambiguity the words describe.

Perhaps most powerfully, Kay's illustrations frequently show Conor small against vast darkness or overwhelmed by the monster's presence, visually representing the emotional truth of a child facing circumstances beyond his capacity to control. The whiteness of the page in some illustrations—the absence of drawing—functions as effectively as the dense, dark images, suggesting emptiness, loss, and the blankness that grief can create. The collaboration between Ness's text and Kay's images creates a reading experience that engages both linguistic and visual literacy, making the book accessible to a wider range of readers while deepening its emotional resonance for all.

Treatment of Death and Grief

A Monster Calls distinguishes itself in young adult literature through its refusal to provide false comfort regarding death and dying. Unlike narratives where death serves as a catalyst for life lessons learned or where the dying character imparts wisdom before a peaceful passing, Ness presents terminal illness in its grinding, undignified reality. Conor's mother doesn't die beautifully; she deteriorates, loses her hair, vomits, weakens, and gradually becomes less recognizable. The novel doesn't shy from the physical facts of cancer and its treatments, the exhaustion and pain, the way illness colonizes not just a body but an entire family's existence.

The book's treatment of anticipatory grief—the mourning that occurs before death—is particularly sophisticated. Conor exists in a state of prolonged crisis, waiting for an outcome everyone knows is coming but no one can predict precisely. This temporal limbo proves in some ways more agonizing than death itself, a truth the novel acknowledges without minimizing the tragedy of loss. The various adults around Conor offer different models of coping: his grandmother's rigid control, his father's geographical escape, his mother's determined optimism. None of these approaches is validated as "correct," nor are they condemned; they simply are, different humans responding to impossible circumstances.

What the novel ultimately offers is not acceptance in the sense of being "okay" with death, but acceptance of the full range of emotions death provokes, including those that shame us. Conor's journey is not toward being brave or strong—qualities adults keep urging on him—but toward being honest. The book suggests that honesty about our emotional complexity is its own form of courage, perhaps the only courage that actually helps when facing loss. The final scene, where Conor tells his unconscious mother "I don't want you to go," releases him not from grief but from the additional burden of unexpressed truth. He will still suffer, still mourn, still struggle—but he will do so having acknowledged the fullness of his humanity, including its contradictions.

Literary Influences and Intertextuality

A Monster Calls participates in a rich tradition of children's and young adult literature that employs fantastical elements to explore real-world trauma. The monster's role as both external threat and internal manifestation recalls Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, where Max's wild things embody his anger and frustration. However, Ness's treatment is decidedly more sophisticated and darker, appropriate for his teenage protagonist and weightier subject matter. The novel also echoes Neil Gaiman's work, particularly The Graveyard Book and Coraline, in its willingness to frighten young readers while trusting them to handle complex emotional truths.

The structure of the monster's tales draws from traditional fairy tales and folklore, but consistently subverts their moral certainty. This approach aligns with contemporary retellings and revisions of fairy tales that interrogate the simplistic morality of traditional versions. Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and other revisionist fairy tale collections provide a adult literary parallel to what Ness accomplishes for younger readers—using the fairy tale structure to explore moral ambiguity and psychological complexity. The prince who might be a murderer, the apothecary who destroys yet saves, and the invisible man who chooses his fate all refuse the clear categories of hero and villain that traditional tales provide.

The novel's exploration of grief also places it in conversation with other contemporary young adult novels addressing death and loss, including John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls. However, A Monster Calls distinguishes itself through its fantastical frame and its particular focus on the child of the dying rather than the dying themselves. This shift in perspective offers something relatively rare in young adult literature: a sustained exploration of what it means to witness a parent's death during adolescence, when children are old enough to understand but perhaps not emotionally equipped to process such loss.

Style and Language

Ness's prose style in A Monster Calls achieves a delicate balance between accessibility and literary sophistication. The sentences are generally straightforward, with clear syntax appropriate for younger readers, yet the language carries emotional weight and imagistic power. Consider the opening: "The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do." These simple sentences immediately establish both the supernatural premise and a matter-of-fact tone that refuses melodrama. Throughout the novel, Ness employs this technique of stating extraordinary things in ordinary language, creating an effect where the fantastical feels inevitable rather than intrusive.

The dialogue rings true to contemporary British adolescent speech without relying heavily on slang that might date the text. Conor speaks like a real thirteen-year-old—sometimes articulate, sometimes sullen, often confused—and the adults around him speak with their own distinct voices. The grandmother's clipped precision, the father's awkward attempts at connection, and the mother's exhausted gentleness all emerge through dialogue that characterizes without caricature. This linguistic authenticity grounds the fantastic elements, making the monster's archaic, formal speech pattern stand out as genuinely Other.

The monster's language deserves particular attention. Its speech is elevated, somewhat archaic, and often cryptic, marking it as belonging to a different order of existence than the human characters. Yet it's not impenetrable; young readers can understand it while recognizing its difference. The monster speaks in declaratives, with certainty and authority: "I have come to walk with you." "Stories are the wildest things of all." This linguistic authority gives weight to its pronouncements and makes its validation of Conor's truth particularly powerful. When the monster says, "You were merely wishing for the end of pain," the formal language dignifies rather than diminishes Conor's emotional experience.

Cultural and Social Context

Published in 2011, A Monster Calls emerges from a particular cultural moment's conversation about death, particularly death in childhood and adolescence. Western culture's tendency to sanitize or hide death, especially from young people, had been increasingly challenged by writers, psychologists, and educators arguing for more honest engagement with mortality. The novel participates in this movement, refusing to protect young readers from difficult truths while providing a framework—the monster and its tales—for processing these truths safely.

The book's British setting matters to its cultural specificity. The National Health Service's treatment of Conor's mother means the family faces no medical bankruptcy, no insurance battles, no decisions based on inability to pay—removing one layer of American healthcare anxiety that would complicate the narrative. However, the novel still captures the class tensions present in British society through Conor's grandmother's middle-class respectability and her barely concealed disapproval of Conor's mother's life choices. The grandmother's house, with its antiques and sitting room, represents a world of order and propriety that Conor's chaotic grief violates when he destroys it.

The novel's treatment of family structure reflects contemporary realities: divorced parents, a father who has started a new family elsewhere, a grandmother who must step into a parenting role she no longer expected. Ness doesn't present this as unusual or worthy of comment; it simply is Conor's reality, one that many contemporary readers will recognize from their own lives or those of friends. This normalization of diverse family structures allows the novel to focus on the universal experience of loss rather than positioning Conor's family situation as itself problematic.

Reader Response and Emotional Impact

A Monster Calls demands significant emotional labor from its readers, requiring them to sit with discomfort and ambiguity rather than offering easy resolution. The novel's power lies partly in its refusal to provide the catharsis that readers might expect or desire. Conor

Story Fundamentals

What is A Monster Calls about?

A Monster Calls is a dark fantasy novel about thirteen-year-old Conor O'Malley, who is dealing with his mother's terminal cancer. At seven minutes past midnight, Conor is visited by a monster that takes the form of an ancient yew tree. The monster promises to tell Conor three stories and demands a fourth story in return—the truth about Conor's nightmare. Set in contemporary England, the novel explores Conor's emotional journey as he struggles with his mother's illness, bullying at school, and his own complex feelings about loss and grief. The narrative weaves together realistic fiction with magical realism, as the monster's visits become a metaphorical space for Conor to process his anger, fear, and guilt. The book tackles difficult themes of mortality, acceptance, and emotional honesty, ultimately showing how facing painful truths can lead to healing and understanding.

Who wrote A Monster Calls and why?

Patrick Ness wrote A Monster Calls based on an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, an acclaimed children's author who died of cancer in 2007 before she could write the story herself. Dowd left behind the premise of a boy visited by a monster while dealing with his mother's terminal illness. Ness was approached to write the book using her concept, and he dedicated the novel to her memory. Published in 2011, the book won numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal, making it the first book to win both simultaneously. Jim Kay provided the haunting illustrations that enhance the emotional depth of the narrative. Ness has stated that while the initial idea came from Dowd, the stories, characters, and specific direction were his own interpretation. The collaboration between Dowd's vision and Ness's execution created a powerful exploration of grief that resonates with readers of all ages.

What age group is A Monster Calls intended for?

A Monster Calls is primarily classified as young adult fiction, typically recommended for readers aged 12 and up. However, the book's sophisticated treatment of grief, death, and complex emotions makes it equally powerful for adult readers. The protagonist is thirteen years old, which helps younger readers identify with Conor's perspective, but the themes are universal and timeless. Many educators use the book with middle school and high school students, particularly when discussing loss, emotional literacy, or literary symbolism. The book contains mature themes including terminal illness, emotional distress, and some violence, which parents should consider when determining appropriateness for individual children. The fantasy elements and monster stories provide an accessible entry point for younger readers, while the psychological depth offers layers of meaning for more mature audiences. Ultimately, the book's crossover appeal has made it successful across multiple age groups and reading levels.

Is A Monster Calls based on a true story?

A Monster Calls is a work of fiction, not based on a specific true story. However, it draws from universal human experiences of grief, loss, and terminal illness that many readers find deeply relatable. The emotional authenticity comes from Patrick Ness's commitment to honestly portraying a child's psychological response to losing a parent. While the monster and its tales are fantastical elements, Conor's emotional journey reflects genuine aspects of anticipatory grief—the complex feelings people experience when they know someone they love is dying. Siobhan Dowd, who conceived the original idea, likely drew inspiration from her own awareness of mortality, as she was battling cancer when she developed the concept. The medical details and family dynamics are realistic and well-researched, reflecting actual experiences of families dealing with cancer. Though fictional, the book's power lies in its truthful representation of emotions that real people face during impossible circumstances.

What are the three tales the monster tells?

The monster tells Conor three stories, each challenging simple moral interpretations. The first tale involves a prince who falls in love with a farmer's daughter, but when his stepmother the queen dies mysteriously, the prince marries a princess from a neighboring kingdom instead, leaving the farmer's daughter to be burned as a witch—though the prince was actually the murderer. The second story features an apothecary whose greedy daughters want to cut down his yew tree, but when the parson becomes ill and needs the tree's healing properties, the apothecary refuses him out of spite, leading to the parson's death. The third tale is about an invisible man who feels unseen by everyone until the monster makes him literally invisible, showing him that being ignored is not the same as not existing. Each story defies expectations of good versus evil, teaching Conor that life is complicated, people contain contradictions, and the truth rarely fits into neat categories.

What happens at the end of A Monster Calls?

At the end of A Monster Calls, Conor finally tells his truth—the nightmare he has been unable to face. He confesses that in his recurring nightmare, he lets go of his mother's hand, allowing her to fall into an abyss, and that part of him wants her death to come so the waiting and suffering will end. This admission of his contradictory feelings—loving his mother while also wanting the pain to stop—is the truth the monster has been waiting for. Shortly after this confession, Conor's mother dies peacefully with Conor holding her hand, the monster supporting them both. The monster helps Conor understand that these conflicting feelings don't make him a bad person; they make him human. The book concludes with Conor beginning to accept his grief and his complex emotions. The ending is bittersweet, offering no magical salvation but instead providing emotional truth and the promise that Conor will survive this loss, forever changed but able to continue living.

Character Psychology

Why does Conor want his mother to die?

Conor doesn't truly want his mother to die in a simple sense—his feelings are far more complex than that. What he actually desires is an end to the unbearable uncertainty, emotional pain, and anticipatory grief that has consumed his life. Watching his mother slowly deteriorate from cancer treatment creates a prolonged agony that feels endless. Conor's wish for it to be over includes wanting his mother's suffering to end, wanting his own suffering to end, and craving the ability to move forward instead of existing in suspended animation. This is a common but deeply shameful feeling among people dealing with prolonged terminal illness of loved ones. The guilt Conor feels about this wish becomes his central psychological torment throughout the book. He believes this thought makes him a monster, which is why he cannot initially articulate it. The monster ultimately helps Conor understand that having contradictory feelings—loving someone while also wanting the painful process to end—is a natural human response to an impossible situation.

Why doesn't anyone punish Conor for his behavior at school?

The school staff's refusal to punish Conor when he acts out or even when he violently attacks Harry represents their misguided compassion and their own discomfort with his situation. Teachers and administrators know about his mother's terminal illness and feel that punishing him would be cruel given his circumstances. However, this creates a devastating form of isolation for Conor. By making him an exception, they mark him as fundamentally different and pitiful, which is precisely what he desperately doesn't want. When Conor destroys the headmistress's office and she still doesn't punish him, he realizes that even extreme behavior won't force others to treat him normally. This special treatment is actually a form of invisible exclusion—everyone sees him only as "the boy whose mother is dying" rather than as a complete person. The lack of consequences, while well-intentioned, denies Conor the normal boundaries and structure that would help him feel like he still exists as a regular person in the world.

What is Conor's relationship with his grandmother like?

Conor's relationship with his grandmother is strained, distant, and complicated by mutual grief and different generational expectations. His grandmother is formal, proper, and emotionally reserved, maintaining a spotless home filled with fragile objects that symbolize how unwelcome Conor feels there. She represents order and control in stark contrast to Conor's emotional chaos. Initially, Conor resents her, seeing her house as a prison and interpreting her behavior as coldness. However, the novel reveals that his grandmother is also suffering—she's facing the impending loss of her daughter while trying to care for a grieving grandson. Her formality is partly her own coping mechanism for unbearable pain. When Conor destroys her sitting room, it becomes a turning point where her perfect facade cracks and she reveals her own devastation. By the end, there's a tentative understanding between them, though not a conventionally warm relationship. They're two people bound by shared loss, learning to coexist in grief rather than achieving an idealized family connection.

Why does Harry bully Conor?

Harry's bullying of Conor is initially presented as typical schoolyard cruelty, but it becomes more complex as the story progresses. Harry may sense Conor's vulnerability and emotional turmoil, making him an easy target. However, after Conor's situation becomes widely known at school, Harry's behavior shifts in an unexpected way. He stops overtly tormenting Conor but also stops acknowledging him entirely, which proves even more painful. This calculated invisibility is a sophisticated form of psychological torment—Harry understands that being seen, even negatively, is better than being ignored completely. When Conor finally snaps and violently attacks Harry, it's not just about revenge for past bullying; it's Conor's desperate attempt to be seen, to provoke any genuine reaction, and to release his pent-up rage at his entire situation. Harry serves as a safe target for emotions Conor cannot direct at his dying mother, his absent father, or his well-meaning grandmother. The bullying dynamic reveals Conor's need for normalcy and genuine human interaction.

What role does Conor's father play in the story?

Conor's father is a distant figure who left England to start a new life and family in America, representing abandonment and failed hope. When he visits during his ex-wife's illness, Conor initially harbors fantasies that his father might take him back to America, offering an escape from his unbearable situation. However, his father quickly reveals he cannot take Conor permanently because of his new family obligations—a new wife and a baby daughter. This rejection, though delivered sympathetically, crushes one of Conor's last hopes for avoiding the painful reality ahead. The father represents the limitations of rescue fantasies; he's not villainous but simply unable or unwilling to be the solution Conor desperately wants. His brief appearance in the narrative highlights Conor's essential aloneness in facing his mother's death. The father's inadequacy also emphasizes the theme that some situations cannot be fixed or escaped—they must be endured and processed, no matter how painful that journey becomes.

Themes & Analysis

What does the monster symbolize in A Monster Calls?

The monster symbolizes multiple interconnected concepts throughout the novel. Primarily, it represents Conor's unconscious mind—the part of himself that knows truths he cannot consciously acknowledge. The monster emerges from a yew tree, which has dual associations with both death (often planted in graveyards) and healing (used in cancer treatment), embodying the contradiction at the heart of Conor's experience. The monster also symbolizes the terrifying nature of emotional truth and the courage required to face painful realities. Its ancient, powerful presence represents forces larger than individual human control—mortality, grief, and the inevitable losses that come with being alive. Additionally, the monster serves as a protective figure, giving Conor permission to feel contradictory emotions and assuring him that complexity doesn't equal monstrosity. The monster's insistence on truth-telling reflects the therapeutic process of acknowledging difficult feelings. Ultimately, the monster is a manifestation of Conor's journey toward psychological integration and acceptance of life's moral and emotional ambiguities.

What is the significance of the yew tree?

The yew tree carries profound symbolic significance throughout A Monster Calls, embodying the central paradox of life and death coexisting. Yew trees are traditionally planted in English churchyards and are associated with death, immortality, and mourning because of their longevity and poisonous nature. However, yew trees also have medicinal properties—taxol, a chemotherapy drug derived from yew bark, is used to treat cancer. This dual nature perfectly mirrors Conor's impossible situation: the same source brings both potential healing and the reality of death. The ancient yew that becomes the monster represents deep wisdom, endurance through centuries, and the understanding that life contains inherent contradictions. When the monster rises from this tree, it brings both destruction and healing to Conor's life. The yew's ability to live for thousands of years while remaining associated with death suggests that life and death are not opposites but interconnected aspects of existence. This botanical symbolism reinforces the novel's central message about accepting life's complexities.

What does the nightmare represent?

Conor's recurring nightmare—where he tries to hold onto his mother as she falls into a dark abyss but ultimately lets go—represents his deepest fear and most shameful truth. On one level, it symbolizes his terror of losing his mother and his powerlessness to save her from cancer. However, the crucial element is that Conor releases her hand, which represents his unconscious acknowledgment that part of him wants the suffering to end, even if that means his mother's death. This nightmare embodies the guilt many people experience during prolonged terminal illness: the exhaustion of anticipatory grief and the desire for resolution, even when that resolution is death. The nightmare is Conor's psyche trying to process feelings he finds morally unacceptable. The dark void into which his mother falls represents both death and the unknown future Conor must face without her. The nightmare's repetitive nature shows how trauma loops endlessly until confronted. When Conor finally tells this truth aloud to the monster, he can transform the nightmare from a source of shame into an acknowledged reality.

How does A Monster Calls explore the theme of truth?

A Monster Calls deeply explores how truth is complex, contradictory, and often painful to acknowledge. The monster's three tales each subvert simple moral interpretations, showing that people can be simultaneously good and bad, that context matters, and that clear heroes and villains rarely exist in real life. This challenges Conor's childlike desire for straightforward answers to his impossible situation. The monster constantly emphasizes that it came not to heal Conor but to tell him the truth, suggesting that emotional honesty is more valuable than false comfort. Conor's journey centers on confronting a truth about himself he finds unbearable—that he harbors contradictory feelings about his mother's impending death. The novel suggests that psychological healing requires acknowledging difficult truths rather than suppressing them. The fourth tale, which Conor must tell, represents the idea that personal truth-telling is harder than hearing others' stories. Throughout the book, truth is presented not as simple facts but as complex emotional realities that resist easy categorization yet must be faced for genuine growth and acceptance.

What does A Monster Calls teach about grief?

A Monster Calls offers profound insights into the complexity of grief, particularly anticipatory grief experienced before a loss occurs. The novel teaches that grief contains contradictory emotions that can coexist—love and resentment, hope and despair, the desire for someone to live and the wish for suffering to end. It shows that these contradictions don't make someone a bad person; they make someone human. The book also explores how grief isolates people, as Conor experiences when others treat him differently because of his mother's illness. It demonstrates that well-meaning attempts to protect grieving people from consequences or harsh realities can actually increase their isolation. The narrative reveals that grief requires truth-telling and acknowledgment of difficult feelings rather than suppression or denial. Additionally, the novel shows that grief doesn't follow predictable stages or timelines—it's messy, non-linear, and deeply personal. Ultimately, A Monster Calls teaches that surviving grief means accepting painful truths, allowing yourself to feel complicated emotions, and understanding that healing doesn't mean forgetting or moving on completely.

How does the book address the concept of being seen versus being invisible?

The theme of visibility versus invisibility runs throughout A Monster Calls as a crucial element of Conor's psychological experience. After his mother's illness becomes known at school, Conor paradoxically becomes invisible despite everyone knowing his situation—people avoid him, conversations stop when he approaches, and even his bully refuses to acknowledge him. This social invisibility is more painful than active bullying because it denies his fundamental existence as a person. The monster's third tale specifically addresses an invisible man, directly paralleling Conor's experience and showing that being unseen is a form of non-existence. Conor's violent outburst against Harry is a desperate attempt to be seen, to provoke genuine reaction rather than pit