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Punishment
Themes
Key
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
Storytelling
Isolation
Family and Growing Up
Summary
Analysis
Days pass. Conor’s grandmother doesn’t talk to Conor in the mornings before school, and no one at school talks to him either. Whenever he visits his mother, she’s often too tired to talk to him. His father calls occasionally, but he never has anything to say. The monster hasn’t returned since the attack on Harry.
Ness explores how, following Conor’s attack on Harry, he slips further and further into isolation. Even his parents and grandmother slip away from him as well. His father starts to exhibit the same behavior that the other students at school do—they don’t know what to say to Conor, and therefore they simply don’t say anything.
Themes
Conor spends the weekend in the hospital. His mother has developed an infection in her lungs, and her pain has gotten worse, too. Conor spends hours wandering around the hospital. Lily and her mother come to visit on the weekend as well, but he makes sure that he spends the whole duration of their visit in the gift shop reading magazines.
Conor demonstrates how some of that isolation is self-imposed, however. He doesn’t want to have to be the one to reach out to Lily, because he still blames her for causing the bulk of his isolation in the first place.
Themes
The next day, in English class, Lily passes Conor a note. In the note, she apologizes for telling everyone about his mother, says she misses being his friend, and asks if he’s okay. In the last line, she writes, “I see you.” Conor looks up, and Lily looks him right in the eye. He starts to say something to her, but just then he is called out of class.
Finally, Lily’s ability to reach out to Conor and apologize for the mistakes she made helps alleviate Conor’s isolation. Through this gesture, Ness suggests that when someone is going through a hard time, the impetus is on others to understand when someone is hurting and to reach out to them—because ignoring them will actually add to their pain.
Themes
