Monster Calls Denial

In the book A Monster Calls, there are a lot of themes introduced. I’ll be focusing on a common theme that many people go through, which is denial. In the book there's a lot of issues that Conor goes through, but he doesn’t want to deal with and he doesn’t want to believe what's going on around him. Conor doesn’t want to accept the fact that his mom is sick. His dreams of the monster outside his window are scaring him, and he tries to keep a distance from the people in his life, which I would say is trust issues; not wanting to get attached to them just for them to leave him.

Conor seems pretty close with his mom, given his dad wasn’t around that much. That can make Conor appreciate his mom a lot more. Well, now, he’s going to be living

He spends a lot of time talking back to the monster. He thinks the monster is a childish thought, ‘little kid’ problem, he’s too much of a man to believe in it. In this case, maybe he should just accept that the monster is going to be there, which is what he started doing. Just like how he needs to accept the other things going on in his life. “Are you listening?” -monster, “No.” -Conor, -pg 24 AMC Ness. Conor expects the monster to come. He actually waits for it to come at 12:07, looks for it. In fact, anyone would if they’re scared. Conor seems to have a relationship with the monster because he thinks it’s his imagination. When Conor is with the monster he tries to be quiet because he doesn’t want to wake his family up, or for them to know what's going on they’ll get worried, or get him help which he doesn’t want because ‘there’s nothing wrong’. Conor feels close to the monster, which is unusual for him because he has trust issues. He asked the monster to heal his mother. Conor got demanding and upset. Conor knows the monster's capability, so he was curious. The monster explains how he finally let someone in his life and he’s been leaning on it too much, but it was for a reason. The monster says he knows what’s going to happen to his mother and its yew tree is going to help. Conor trusted the monster. The monster is a symbolism of his

He’s having trouble connecting with his father. After his father’s new girlfriend came into the picture. When his father came back he expected to have the same old relationship they had. Since there's something new, Conor finds it hard to accept the new change. Lily has been finding it hard to talk to Conor like they used to. He’s been pushing her away ever since people found out about his mom. She’s been trying to get Conor to open up about it, and defend him when other people make fun of him, but Conor gets mad at her for it and doesn’t want her to get involved, or talk. When Lily tried to apologize, Conor gave her attitude and wanted nothing to do with her. He doesn’t apologize back when she was trying to be nice about it. Conor doesn’t enjoy communicating, which is why Harry went so far. He just let it happen but also let it get to him every time he got made fun