Monster Calls

6. Kubler-Ross' (1969) theory of the stages of grief when an individual is dying has gained wide acceptance in nursing and other disciplines.

A Monster Calls is written by Patrick Ness, and is an extraordinary novel of love, loss, and hope.It is about how conor (Lewis MacDougall) is dealing with far more than other boys his age. His beloved and devoted mother (Felicity Jones) is ill and he has little in common with his imperious grandmother. His father has resettled thousands of miles away, but conor finds a most unlikely ally when the Monster (Liam Neeson) appears at his bedroom window one night. Ancient, wild, and relentless, the Monster guides Conor on a journey of courage, faith, and truth that powerfully fuses imagination and reality. The theme of the book is death. There is no way to avoid death and loss, but to learn how to cope with it.Two literary elements that support the theme are Symbolism and imagery. These are both

The composer of the novel uses the monster to conflict towards Conor’s emotions to “speak the truth”, thus to demonstrate that there’s only one way for the protagonist to escape the nightmare and it is by confessing the ‘Fourth tale’. Additionally, throughout the chapter, the monster also illustrates the use of narrative devices of repetition and imperative voice towards Conor to “speak the truth or stay here forever”. Ness also demonstrates emotive language to help display Conor’s suffering and affliction, “the blackness was wrapping itself around Conor’s eyes now… it was suffocating him. It was killing him”, as the composer uses personification to help shape meaning to Conor’s soreness and pain. Furthermore, Patrick Ness also uses Conor to describe emotive language, “Conor’s eyes were filling now. Tears were tumbling down… nearly taken him over completely”, as it illustrates that the fear and darkness is suffocating and killing the protagonist. Therefore, the author uses the monster to help contribute to the character’s change, by establishing the use of language techniques to reveal the

Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls, is truly inspiring and an emotional novel for audiences that changes ones’ perspective towards facing death. Conor’s mother affects the main character of the story (Conor) due to the fact that she has cancer. Conor seems to be maintained and calm since Conors mom is still alive. Because of her sickness, Conor was reunited with his family once again, but he wishes they would both leave since his father and grandmother are trying to make him understand that there’s a good chance she won’t make it. The audience can only understand Conor if they understand what’s going on in his head. Overtime, this “nightmare” is shown throughout the text but is never explained until the final chapter. A nightmare that’s been

When the monster returns, he learns of the family’s sudden plans to move away. With no other direction, the monster seeks out answers from his creator. He comes across Victor’s papers, which reveal his identity and residence. With his newfound information, the monster decides to find his way to Victor. Throughout his journey his curiosity begins to turn into hatred and rage towards his creator. As he treks across the continent he discloses, “the spirit of revenge is enkindled in my heart” (119). This shows the monster’s capability of harboring dark emotions; it shows his benevolence quickly slipping away.

Elisabeth Kubler Ross was a psychiatrist and revolutionizes how people view death and dying. She would listen to dying patients a give them a public form. She came up with five stages of grief. They stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages are used universally.

The major significance of the Kubler-Ross model is that it maps emotional responses of the individual’s journey through the changing landscape of the loss and grieving process. The counsellor can use this model as a guide to help navigate their client through the ‘roller coaster of change’ and the fluctuating emotional terrain of grief.

Desmond Fong ENGL 112W B101 Rachel Bodnariuc 8 April 2024 The anticipation of impending loss can evoke surreal sensations, inducing grief-driven anxiety and fear. In Patrick Ness’s, "A Monster Calls," Ness produces this eerie familiarity. Through vivid descriptions and imagery, Ness immerses readers in a hauntingly realistic world through the lens of grief. While some may argue that supernatural elements may stretch believability, Ness’s keen insight into human emotions creates compelling authenticity. In this paper, I will argue that the emotional authenticity of Ness’s characters, portrayed through their struggles with loss, immersive worlds and themes, as well as the supernatural elements, all add to the realism of the story.

This movie does a really good job on portraying the emotional and psychological responses to life-threatening illness, also famously known as Kubler-Ross’s model. The five stages of this model are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This model describes the process by which people cope and deal with grief especially when diagnosed with life threatening illness. Kubler-Ross pointed out that, during the course of an illness,

A monster calls, a novel composed by Patrick Ness centres around the theme of change which leads Conor to new understandings by using language techniques including symbolism, descriptive language, imagery** as well as using other themes to further explain Conor’s change. 13-year-old Conor O’Malley is told his mother is dying of cancer, as a result Conor suffers from harassment and isolation. Due to Conor having to anticipate his mother’s death, he has a recurring nightmare which is a visual metaphor for Conor wanting to end his suffering. Conor’s denial brought a yew tree monster ‘walking’, the purpose of this monster is to guide Conor to acknowledge and understand his truth, by telling him tales while asking questions designed to encourage him to reflect on his situations, which would benefit him to understand his emotions and actions better, this is all in the effort of healing him from his suffering so that he can accept his

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, (2014), a Swiss-born American psychiatrist, introduced concept of providing psychological counselling to the dying. In her first book, On Death and Dying (published in 1969), she write about the “five stages of grief”, they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. based on her studies of the feelings of patients facing terminal illness, and have being generalised to other types of negative life changes and losses, such as divorce, loss of property or job, and offered strategies for treating patients and their families as they negotiate these stages.

“The short term pain of accepting the truth is much better than the long term pain of believing an illusion”- unknown. In the novel A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, a 13 year old boy, Conor O'malley, deals with inner struggles when accepting his mother’s fatal illness. Conor experiences hardship when coming to terms with the truth so he chooses to suppress it with denial and this worsens his grieving process. Conor undergoes a troubling state where he is lonesome and unwillingly expresses himself through violence and a series of emotional collapses. The teen’s way of coping is not beneficial to either him or is family. A monster in the form of a Yew tree comes to visit Conor and guides him towards the acceptance of truth. Although Conor is not oblivious towards his mother’s imminent death, he must learn from the monster to fully accept the condition she is in, in order to move on with his life. The Yew tree monster guides Conor through storytelling, thus teaching him the importance of accepting the truth. At times, the monster takes a step back and this allows Conor to discover the importance of truth slowly and independently. The way the monster approaches Conor and the tactics he uses to enlighten him are the main reasons Conor develops throughout the novel as an individual. Patrick Ness conveys the importance of truth and how difficult it is for individuals to accept and come to terms with

Throughout the book, the conflicts are shown as Conor struggles with the denial of losing his mom and admitting he wants it to be over and with anger and sadness connected to the loss of his mom. Conor also struggles with accepting what is happening with his mom and himself, which the monster helps him realize and finally heal. As Conor

As Keanu Reeves once said, “Grief changes shapes, but it never ends” (“Tragic”). When it comes to grief there are usually five shapes or stages that people go through: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. The book A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness, is about a young boy who is struggling with school, bullies, friends, and family when his mother develops a terminal illness. He is visited by the monster, a massive yew tree, who comes alive to teach Conor the ways of the world. He also teaches Conor the truth in order to move past his mother’s sickness. Ness shows how people in both literature and real life tend to go through five stages of grief while dealing with a loved one who has a terminal illness because of the overwhelming lamentation it inflicts.

In history, monsters are portrayed as vicious creatures with frightening superpowers and other inhuman characteristics. In A Monster Calls, monsters play a significant role in the story. Although they're just imaginary creatures created by the human's imagination, they have a great purpose in the creation of the story, they are often used to tell the story, show fear, and scare. In the case of A Monster Calls, the Yew Tree monster takes Conor on a journey of courage, faith, and truth. For example, the quote from A Monster Calls "It is not what I want from you, Conor O’Malley, it said. It is what you want from me."[page.10], he is trying to help Conor and often the monster can be seen friendly and helping Conor with his life by experiences. Conor has an egregious life, while his father moved away, his mother is dying because of cancer and cannot help him on the things she wanted to help, this monster helps change his life in exchange for the truth or the his “nightmare.” While getting bullied and abused in school Conor still maintains a calm life. At 12:07 the monster arrives to talk to him every night and takes to tell three stories and then he has tell his nightmare, but Conor loses his mom because of the nightmare monster this was the nightmare he saw every day, but when he woke up, he went to hold his mom for the last time. As the quote from A Monster Calls states her death “Conor held tightly onto his mother, and by doing so, he could finally let her go.”