A Monster Calls

by

Patrick Ness

Death, Denial, and Acceptance Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Death, Denial, and Acceptance Theme Icon
Storytelling Theme Icon
Isolation Theme Icon
Family and Growing Up Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Monster Calls, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death, Denial, and Acceptance Theme Icon

In A Monster Calls, thirteen-year-old Conor lives in an English town with his mother, who is implied to be battling cancer. Over the course of the book, Conor’s mother grows more and more ill as multiple treatments fail her, and it’s implied that she passes away just after the novel’s conclusion. At the beginning of the book, Conor has a difficult time coming to terms with the very real possibility that his mother may not get better. One night, as he is grappling with this denial, an enormous monster that takes the shape of a yew tree pays him a visit and returns on several other occasions. Though the monster looks terrifying, its intention is to tell Conor stories and to help him try to heal from the pain and sadness he is experiencing. What the monster ultimately helps Conor recognize, and what the book ultimately argues, is that Conor and his family cannot avoid suffering and death; instead, they must confront their pain head on in order to eventually move past it.

Conor is constantly confronted with his mother’s suffering and evidence of her impending death. Despite the fact that her health is deteriorating right before his eyes, Conor holds out hope that she will get better and tries to push away his own suffering in the process. Ness fills the book with examples of Conor’s mother’s sickness: she feels exhausted and often falls asleep in odd places; she is losing her hair from her treatments; she vomits so often that Conor describes this as “normal.” Despite these facts, Conor is firmly in denial about his mother’s condition. When Conor’s mother tries to tell him that she won’t get better, he rejects this idea and accuses her of lying because she had said she believed her treatments would work. His mother is incredibly hurt by this, but she tells him through sobs that she understands why he is angry with her. This reaction demonstrates how Conor’s attempt to push away his own grief only inflicts more pain and suffering on himself and those around him.

Because he is in denial about his mother’s illness, Conor attempts to make things appear completely normal at all costs. But in doing so, he only gets more and more upset when people try to make changes in his life, because he wants to continue believing that everything is normal. This leads to difficult situations with his family members, who are attempting to prepare Conor for his mother’s death. For instance, Conor and his grandmother have a difficult relationship, as she is often cold and strict towards him. Conor is adamant that everything is fine and that he doesn’t need to live with his grandmother when his mother ends up in the hospital, but his grandmother insists that he live with her. Eventually Conor takes out his frustration with the situation by destroying her antique-filled living room. Conor also has a confrontation with his father, who divorced his mother several years earlier and now lives in America with his new wife, Stephanie, and a new baby. Conor’s father insists that Conor has to be brave for what could come “after,” but Conor insists that he doesn’t want to talk about what the future might be like until after his mother gets better, again displaying his deep-rooted denial.

Conor’s inability to face his mother’s death is what summons the monster to his room. The monster tells Conor stories in order to show him that it is okay to be angry at the world, to be frustrated with his family, and to be upset about the weight that his mother’s illness places on him. After the monster gives Conor permission to express his grief and pain, the climax of the book shows Conor finally coming to terms with his mother’s impending death. Conor understands the necessity of expressing his grief rather than denying it, because allowing himself to feel the painful sting of loss is the only way he can eventually move past that pain. The monster pushes Conor to face a recurring nightmare in which his mother is falling from a cliff and Conor tries to save her. Conor lets go of his mother because she has become so heavy, even though he knows that he could hold onto her for a little bit longer. The nightmare shows how Conor is weighed down by the emotional pain of watching his mother die. He explains to the monster, “I started to think how much I wanted it to be over. How much I just wanted to stop having to think about it. How I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore.” Conor has experienced so much suffering, and has tried to avoid it for so long, that he fears confronting his own emotional pain even more than he fears his mother’s death. However, after Conor speaks this truth, the monster is able to comfort Conor; the monster tells him that it is okay, and very human, to wish for the end of pain, and that Conor does not have to feel guilty for his mother’s death because Conor is not responsible for it. Unlike in his nightmare, when he tries to cling to his mother’s hand and keep her from falling into the pit (thus making him responsible for whether she lives or dies), in real life he has no control over the outcome of her battle with cancer. The monster also helps Conor admit to his mother that he doesn’t want her to die, a final honest confession that releases the tension between them. The monster even stays with Conor as his mother passes away. These actions of comfort show that while Conor’s suffering is unavoidable, attempting to suppress it only makes it worse. Only in expressing his grief over his mother’s death is Conor then able to receive the monster’s comfort, which he acknowledges will help him get through this terrible pain.

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Death, Denial, and Acceptance Quotes in A Monster Calls

Below you will find the important quotes in A Monster Calls related to the theme of Death, Denial, and Acceptance.
A Monster Calls Quotes

He’d told no one about the nightmare. Not his mum, obviously, but no one else either, not his dad in their fortnightly (or so) phone call, definitely not his grandma, and no one at school. Absolutely not.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Breakfast Quotes

“I’m going to be late,” Conor said, eyeing the clock.

“Okay, sweetheart,” she said, teetering over to kiss him on the forehead. “You’re a good boy,” she said again. “I wish you didn’t have to be quite so good.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Mother (speaker), Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Three Stories Quotes

You know that is not true, the monster said. You know that your truth, the one that you hide, Conor O’Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
The Wildness of Stories Quotes

And you have worse things to be frightened of, said the monster, but not as a question.

Conor looked at the ground, then up at the moon, anywhere but at the monster’s eyes. The nightmare feeling was rising in him, turning everything around him to darkness, making everything seem heavy and impossible, like he’d been asked to lift a mountain with his bare hands and no one would let him leave until he did.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rest of the First Tale Quotes

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.

Conor shook his head. “That’s a terrible story. And a cheat.”

It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers’ daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, The Evil Queen, The Young Prince, The Farmer’s Daughter
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:
Understanding Quotes

And for a moment, Conor was entirely alone.

He knew right then he could probably stay out there all day and no one would punish him for it.

Which somehow made him feel even worse.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Champ Quotes

“We barely have room for the three of us, Con. Your grandma has a lot more money and space than we do. Plus, you’re in school here, your friends are here, your whole life is here. It would be unfair to just take you out of all that.”

“Unfair to who?” Conor asked.

His father sighed. “This is what I meant,” he said. “This is what I meant when I said you were going to have to be brave.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Tale Quotes

The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, The Parson, The Apothecary
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Destruction Quotes

She walked right past him, her face twisted in tears, the moaning spilling out of her again. She went to the display cabinet, the only thing remaining upright in the room.

And she grabbed it by one side—

And pulled on it hard once—

Twice—

And a third time.

Sending it crashing to the floor with a final-sounding crunch.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Grandmother, The Parson
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Invisible Quotes

His classmates kept their distance from him, too, like he was giving off a bad smell. He tried to remember if he’d talked to any of them since he’d arrived this morning. He didn’t think he had. Which meant he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone since his father that morning.

How could something like that happen?

But, finally, here was Harry. And that, at least, felt normal.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father, Harry, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Could It Be? Quotes

“Son,” his father said, leaning forward. “Stories don’t always have happy endings.”

This stopped him. Because they didn’t, did they? That’s one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn’t expect.

Related Characters: Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Punishment Quotes

He was going to be punished. It was finally going to happen. Everything was going to make sense again. She was going to expel him.

Punishment was coming.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
Life After Death Quotes

“I’ve known forever she wasn’t going to make it, almost from the beginning. She said she was getting better because that’s what I wanted to hear. And I believed her. Except I didn’t.”

No, the monster said.

Conor swallowed, still struggling. “And I started to think how much I wanted it to be over. How much I just wanted to stop having to think about it. How I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. I couldn’t stand how alone it made me feel.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:

He faintly felt the huge hands of the monster pick him up, forming a little nest to hold him. He was only vaguely aware of the leaves and branches twisting around him, softening and widening to let him lie back.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

“I didn’t mean it,” Conor said.

You did, the monster said, but you also did not.

Conor sniffed and looked up to its face, which was as big as a wall in front of him. “How can both be true?”

Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour?

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, The Evil Queen, The Parson, The Young Prince, The Apothecary
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
The Truth Quotes

And he also knew he was going to get through it.

It would be terrible. It would be beyond terrible.

But he’d survive.

And it was for this that the monster came. It must have been.

Conor had needed it, and his need had somehow called it. And it had come walking. Just for this moment.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ll stay?” Conor whispered to the monster, barely able to speak. “You’ll stay until. . .”

I will stay, the monster said, its hands still on Conor’s shoulders. Now all you have to do is speak the truth.

And so Conor did.

He took in a breath.

And, at last, he spoke the final and total truth.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, the tears dropping from his eyes, slowly at first, then spilling like a river.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis: