A Monster Calls Literary Devices

Introduction: Patrick Ness’ gothic tale, A Monster Calls, is an ominous story about a 13 year old boy in England named Conor O’ Malley. He faces multiple obstacles such as his mum having cancer, him having to deal with constant bullying at school, and alongside all these challenges, he also has to deal with being the man of the house, with his father not being present, and being in America with another family. Alongside this, he has also been struggling with having nightmares, at 12:07, where the monster visits him. Ness uses a variety of literary techniques to create a strobing effect on readers, ranging from Foreshadowing, Anthropomorphism, Imagery

The Author, Patrick Ness, incorporates multiple literary elements and devices to create suspense and fear, with the first one being Anthropomorphism. This can be proven by the Yew Tree being present throughout the whole story with multiple examples such as the first appearance in his first dream on pg (19) and also when the monster is telling Conor the three tales, and basically throughout the whole book. The yew tree is

The use of foreshadowing builds suspense and fear within the reader. All throughout the story, Ness smartly uses foreshadowing, hinting the upcoming events that are about to occur to Conor. A way Ness portrays this is when the monster tells the 3 tales to Conor. Each tale signifies an upcoming event that will eventually lead to it occurring, with the first tale where the prince (Conor) overthrows the evil witch (Conor’s grandma) by destroying her house, and the prince trying to get the monster to kill the evil witch. In the tale where the monster tells Conor the tale about the Invisible man, he eventually becomes the invisible man, thus resulting in foreshadowing. This affects the reader by making the story more deep rather than just a regular gothic tale, making the reader think more, and making the story more interesting and