A MONSTER CALLS

"A MONSTER CALLS" by Patrick Ness is an amazing novel about a boy struggling with his mom's on going fight with cancer. The boys name is Conor and in the story he has occasional visits from a mysterious very real monster that he is not a single bit scared of. In the story Conor's  relationship with the monster constantly changes and sometimes grows. An example of how Conor and the Monster's relationship changes is that Conor will go from liking the Monster to hating the Monster from 1 little thing like ending a story that ended badly and then go back to liking the Monster. Ultimately Conor becomes dependent upon the Monster becuse aside from his his mom he's the only person he cares about.

In the book Conor takes a rigorous emotional roller coaster from denial, to complete misery, to acceptance. In the beginning of the book  Conor seems calm about the whole idea of his mom having cancer but as the book goes on his grip on his emotions begins to loosen. an example of this is where he breaks down in school and with the monster's help beats  his ruthless bully Harry to a pulp. A piece of evidence to show  this is from the book where Ness wrote "you put him in the hospital, Conor, she said, you broke his arm, his nose,and I bet his teeth are never going to be that pretty again." this line shows that Conor's tolerance for Harry snapped and he broke down and although it was the monster committing the actions he was doing it through Conor's body and  because of this i think that the monster is a symbol of Conor's building anger.

 Another example of where Conor loses his hold on his emotions is where he destroys his Grandmother's house. In this scene he is told a story by the monster and afterwards the monster asks him to part take in destroying an imaginary house but it turns out when Conor is released from the mist he has destroyed his own Grandmother's house and the monster is nowhere to be found. A line from the book to support my claim is "now that, said the monster, is how destruction is properly done. And suddenly they were back in Conor's Grandma's sitting room. Conor saw that he had destroyed every inch of it." This is a good example of Conor losing it because blinded by the Anger he's been hiding, he destroys his Grandmothers house.

 The last circumstance where Conor completely breaks down is in the end of the book. A piece of textual evidence to support my explanation of Conor's final break down where he comes to terms with himself is " I can't  stand it anymore! he cried out as the fire raged around him. I can't stand knowing shes that she'll go! I just want it to be finished! and then the fire ate the world, wiping him away with it. This line is really important to the book  because he is in this kind of empty place controlled by the monster and he is being forced to admit what he has been trying to hide from himself the whole book that his mom's cancer will inevitably kill her. I find that this is the Climax of the book because every thing has been building up to this moment.



In Conclusion I don"t think the "Monster" is real. I think the Monster is more than what he appears to be, I think the Monster is many things. The first thing i think the Monster is, is the building anger in Conor, I think that the "Monster" is something brought to Conor from his brain that gave him some one to talk to and some one to share his loneliness with and lastly I think  that the "Monster" is the ugly truth that we all try to ignore but eventually no matter how hard we try it stays until it's resolved.