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Little Talk
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
Conor is now staying at his grandmother’s house, and the monster hasn’t visited him in five days. He wonders if his grandmother lives too far away from his house for the monster to visit. It is Sunday, the day his father is arriving. Conor’s grandmother has been driving Conor the 45 minutes to school every day, and then picking him up after school to take him to the hospital to see his mother. They usually only stay for an hour or so because his mother is always so exhausted, and then they often go home and have takeout.
At his grandmother’s house, Conor has to deal with both a new routine and a new type of family dynamic. But it is clear throughout the chapter that even at his grandmother’s house, he is caught between having the responsibility of an adult (particularly as his mother’s condition worsens) and the carefree attitude of a thirteen-year-old.
Themes
Conor’s grandmother leaves to go to the hospital while Conor waits for his father. He goes up to the “guest room,” which his grandmother insists on calling “his room.” But Conor argues that it doesn’t look like his room, or even any boy’s room. He grabs a book to read because his grandmother has forbidden video games in the house.
Even though Conor is now living with his grandmother for the foreseeable future, he insists that it is only temporary by refusing to call the guest room “his room,” again denying the potential future that might await him. Meanwhile, his grandmother is characteristically realistic and urges him to take ownership over the room and begin to acclimate himself with his new life.
Themes
Conor isn’t normally allowed in the sitting room, but he settles in there to read his book while waiting for his father. He marvels at the pristine antiques that no one is allowed to touch. He realizes as he waits that he is nervous to see his father: they haven’t seen each other in person in a long time, and he still doesn’t know why his father is coming to visit. Eventually, Conor’s father arrives, and when Conor greets him at the door, he smiles “wider than he had for at least a year.”
Conor’s smile when he sees his father for the first time in years is significant because it suggests that a weight has been lifted off of Conor’s shoulders, at least temporarily. Conor has had to fill a parental role for a while now, and so being able to be a kid and be emotionally taken care of by his father is a relief for him.
Themes
