A Monster Calls

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapters 19-26

Chapters 27-32

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Character Analysis

Conor O’Malley

Conor is a 13-year-old English boy and the protagonist of the novel. He lives with his mother, who is battling an unnamed illness, and because she is often too exhausted or ill to take care of him, Conor has learned to fend for himself. In the opening chapters of the novel, Ness describes Conor “in his school uniform, his rucksack packed for the day and waiting by the front door. All things he’d done for himself” (11). Although Conor’s fierce sense of initiative and responsibility are the result of his mother’s diagnosis, he does not begrudge his mother for it.

Conor’s secretive side is seen on the very first page of the novel when Ness explains that “He’d told no one about the nightmare. Not his mum, obviously, but no one else either” (1). From the beginning, the nightmare is established as Conor’s greatest fear and biggest secret, and a constant source of inescapable shame in his life. It also tells the reader that although Conor and his mother are close, there are certain things they keep from each other, such as the details of the nightmare and the truth about her diagnosis. Ness goes on to illustrate how lonely Conor is, because not only has he not told his mother about this nightmare, but “not his dad in their fortnightly (or so) phone call, definitely not his Grandma, and no one at school. Absolutely not” (1). Conor has no one to talk to, even though he is living through an incredibly difficult and traumatizing situation, and this intense loneliness establishes the danger of his grief.

Conor tries to behave as if the situation with his mother doesn’t affect him to avoid drawing attention to his repressed emotions and the secret that manifests itself in his nightmare. He flippantly tells Grandma that “We don’t need you here” (41), and later in the novel, he tells his father the same thing: “you just go back to America [...] and we’ll be fine here without you” (134). He is unhappy when Lily tries to defend him, saying “I don’t need your help [...] I was doing fine on my own” (25). Time and time again, Conor pushes away help and insists that he can handle his problems on his own. However, as his mother approaches the final moments of her life, Conor cannot bear the weight of his grief, and subconsciously asks the monster for help. Later, he openly begs it to heal his mother, and when the yew tree medicine doesn’t work, Conor asks the monster to help him say goodbye to his mother. Fierce independence can be a trauma response, and Conor’s willingness to ask for help in the final moments of the novel show his growth through his pain, and evidence that he is healing.

Conor has a strong capacity for anger, as seen not only in the scenes with the sitting room and with Harry in the cafeteria, but also in the small moments where he thinks about hurting Lily. When the opportunity arises to release that anger by destroying the Parson’s house, Conor begins to lose himself in his rage, unable to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms for his grief. Conor is shocked to see the carnage of Grandma’s sitting room, and states that “There was no way he could have done all this himself” (116). Later, after the fight in the cafeteria, the headmistress remarks that “I’m not even sure how one boy could have caused so much damage by himself” (154). Although Conor blames the monster in both situations, the monster is merely an extension of Conor’s grief, and so he doesn’t feel quite like himself when he is destroying or hurting others.

In the end, it becomes clear that Conor’s pain and anger is rooted in his love for his mother. If Conor didn’t love his mother, the process of her passing wouldn’t trigger such a profound amount of pain. Anger is often considered to be a secondary emotion, often triggered by another feeling. For example, Conor destroys Grandma’s sitting room, but only after coming back from dinner with his father where he learned that he wouldn’t be allowed to live in America. Conor’s feelings of hurt and rejection were quickly masked by rage. When Conor argues with Grandma, his anger towards her is rooted in the topic of their discussion about him coming to live with her, and his fear of thinking about life after his mother. By the end of the novel, Conor is able to confront his anger, sorrow, and fear over his mother’s death directly, and to let go of the shame he feels for wishing for an end to his family’s suffering, even though he knows this means his mother will die. Through being honest with himself about his emotions, Conor is able to share a loving moment with his mother before she dies, and he begins to prepare himself to heal.

Conor’s Mum

Conor’s mother is never given a name in the book, but she is the most important character to the plot development. She is a young, divorced mother who is battling a mysterious illness, and she has a close relationship with her son. The day before his mother told Conor about her diagnosis, he recalls how much fun they had together at his favorite Indian restaurant, and how “On the drive home, they could hardly talk from laughing and farting so hard” (24). These details reveal two things about Conor’s mom: she and Conor are close and have a lot of fun together, but also that she felt the need to soften the blow of her news by first giving Conor the best day she could think of.

Conor’s mother wrestles not only with the burden of her illness, but also with the uncertainty of how much to tell her son and how to shield him from the unpleasantness of her likely death. She consistently tries to give Conor hope and downplay the severity of her illness. The irony is that Conor knows deep down that his mother will not survive, but he clings to this false hope because he thinks she needs him to believe it. Neither Conor nor his mother wants to admit the grim reality of the situation, each believing that the other needs the false hope to be sustained. Conor’s mother doesn’t want to traumatize her child, but she also doesn’t prepare him for her passing until the final chapters of the novel.

Conor’s mother admits to him that she wasn’t just pretending to have hope: “I did believe it would work [...] It’s probably what’s kept me here so long, Conor. Believing it so you would” (166). She believes firmly that hope has kept her alive longer, and that there is power in belief. She also tells him that it’s okay to be angry and expresses anger herself. Conor’s mother is often seen as too frail, too weak, or too gentle to have feelings of real anger or resentment, but she is human like Conor, and her anger manifests in different ways than his. She assures Conor that he doesn’t need to worry about saying all of the right things to her before she dies, but that “I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud” (167). She tries to make the final stages of her dying easier on Conor by not burdening him with having the perfect words to say goodbye. Even in death, Conor’s mother seeks to protect him and comfort him, and although her tenderness led her to conceal the truth, it was always motivated by love.

The Monster

The monster is steeped in mystery, and although it most often takes the form of the yew tree, the monster claims to be ancient and wild and even calls itself by the names “Herne the Hunter” and “Cernunnos,” which are ancient deities associated with nature and death. When the monster calls Conor’s name at the beginning of the novel, Conor notices that “This voice had a quality to it, a monstrous quality, wild and untamed” (3), and when the monster comes walking, it is described as having “a powerful shape, one that looked somehow strong, somehow mighty” (5). It is wild, ugly, fearsome, and capable of violence and destruction. The monster is a complicated creature, sometimes full of wisdom and steadiness, and sometimes flying into a rage and destroying things. It demands Conor’s respect and attention, warning him that “I do not often come walking, boy [...] only for matters of life and death” (35). It insists that Conor is the one who called it, and it will do its job and help Conor work through his truth.

The monster can be seen as an extension of Conor’s grief. When Conor acts out and destroys the sitting room, it is the monster who encourages him to do it. When Conor attacks Harry in the cafeteria, Conor believes that it is actually the monster who is doing it. Conor hears the monster in his head in both of these moments, which leads the reader to think that the monster is a figment of Conor’s imagination. Ness complicates this reading with the physical evidence that the monster leaves behind after its visits: berries and leaves on the floor, a sapling growing from the wooden boards, even yew tree leaves coming in through the window of the cafeteria. The monster may be in Conor’s head, but it is also a fantastical creature that is careful to leave its mark on the physical world.

In the final chapters of the novel, the monster’s harsh, wild temperament changes. After the nightmare is revealed, the monster becomes gentle and caring, comforting Conor and offering him counsel. It tells Conor that “You do not write your life with words [...] You write it with actions,” and that “This is why I came walking, to tell you this so that you may heal” (192). From the very beginning, the monster has not been trying to traumatize Conor, but to help guide him through the process of grieving. Conor was so lonely that he had no one to talk to, no one to confess his feelings to without judgment, and the monster came to fulfill this need and speak truth into Conor’s life.

Grandma

At the beginning of the novel, Conor’s grandma is presented as a potential antagonist. She and Conor do not get along very well, and when he learns that she is coming to stay with them for a few days, Conor becomes very upset. He complains that she isn’t like normal grandmothers, because she “wore tailored pantsuits” and “dyed her hair to keep out the gray” (39). Conor also complains that “Her house was [...] filled with expensive old things you could never touch, like a clock she wouldn’t even let the cleaning lady dust” (39).

Grandma can be very blunt and particular about how she wants certain things done, and Conor is not secretive about his resentment towards her. Still, she tries to tell Conor “I’m not your enemy” (41), and that “when this is all over, you’ve got a home [...] With someone who’ll love you and care for you” (43). Grandma may not get along with Conor, but she loves him and wants to make sure he is prepared for life after his mother’s death. Grandma feels like Conor’s parents are doing a poor job of being honest with him about the severity of his mother’s illness. She is a practical woman who takes a practical approach to grieving, and whereas Conor and his parents avoid the grieving process, she has decided to face it head-on.

Although Conor’s father doesn’t get along with Grandma, he makes sure to tell Conor “She may not like me [...] but that doesn’t mean she’s a bad lady” (91). Grandma’s approach might be more aggressive than others, but without her, not much would get done in the way of taking care of Conor. When Conor finishes destroying Grandma’s sitting room, he sees her face in the moments before she notices the destruction, and he registers “how tired it was, no news on it, good or bad, just the same old night at the hospital with Conor’s mum, the same old night that was wearing them both so thin” (117). Conor finally starts to understand the toll this situation is taking on his grandmother, and how hard she is working to get answers for her daughter, keep her company in the hospital, and make sure Conor is taken care of. Conor feels guilty not only for what he has done to her house, but for how he has treated her throughout this process.

At the end of the novel, Conor has a revelation about Grandma: “His mum was her daughter. And she was the most important person either of them knew” (200). He reaches an understanding that his grandmother is suffering as well, and much like the people around Conor give him allowances for his behavior, he should also give Grandma some allowances and recognize how hard she has been working for him and his mother. Like the queen in the monster’s first tale, Grandma is not evil. She is simply her own person, trying to do her best for the people she cares about.