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• 1 2020-04-21T12:10:46-07:00 With(In) You 10 Grief Leading to Monstrosity plain 2020-04-22T18:16:10-07:00

  Grief is another way that monstrosity is realased from inside a child. This avenue is explored in A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. In this illustrated novel, the main character Conor is losing his mother to cancer and is visited by a monster who takes the shape of a yew tree at the same time, 12:07. When visited by the monster, Conor must listen to three tales before eventually having to his truth to the monster: that he wants to let go of his mother so both he and she can be free from the pain that they are both experiencing throughout the entire process of her illness. The monster is not just a character that visits Conor to help him through his grieving process, but something more, exposing something older about the way humans relate to their own monstrosity that is caused by their emotions. While it may seem like the monster is an external part of Conor's world, there are many times when it becomes clear that the monster is in fact a part of Conor and his own human monstrosity.
  
  There are many instances where the monster and Conor blur into one, cementing that the monster is real not only in Conor’s mind but also within the story itself. The stories that the monster tells Conor whenever it visits him replicates parts of Conor’s own life since the monster is aware of what Conor is going through and is trying to coach him through the terrible moments that he is dealing with. In these moments where Conor and the monster combine to make one being, Conor learns more about how he is coping with the unfamiliar grief that he is now going through. He also follows the monster’s instructions to leave his monster-ness behind and to give in to his emotions and eventually deal with his mother’s death. Though, for Conor to leave his monstrosity behind, he must full enwrap himself in the monster to see his world through a different lens. For example, during the second tale, the monster tells Conor about a time it had to destroy the home of a pastor who refused to believe the apothecary about the healing power of his yew tree. It is during this tale that Conor commands the monster to destroy certain aspects of the pastor’s home, unaware that while the monster is destroying the home in the story (Ness 109), Conor is destroying his grandmother’s living room. Conor could feel his “heart racing,” his “breathing growing heavy” and a “feverish” feeling growing over him (110). He begins to describe the destruction as “satisfying,” a term that the monster uses in association with the destruction that it wrecked in the past (111). In addition to the destruction that both the monster and Conor cause together, they also blur in the illustrations associated with the second tale. Up until this point, the monster is depicted as a pure black figure that is shaped like a yew. Yet when it and Conor begin to merge, the whiteness of Conor’s figure melds with the monster’s, and the monster’s figure begins to grey (101). Conor’s figure also greys a bit, suggesting through the illustrations in the novel that the two are combining. 
  
  The final tale that the monster tells Conor is that of the invisible man that wants so much to be seen by those around him. Conor is dealing with feeling unseen by his peers, and this story sparks a wave of anger in him against his bully, Harry, that leads Conor to attack him, with some help from the monster. This time, instead of Conor telling the monster what to destroy and when the monster is urging Conor to attack Harry. By telling the tale of the invisible man, it is hitting a cord in Conor that has not been struck up until this point. The monster’s voice “ring[s]” in Conor’s ears and he feels a “monstrous” hand rush past him to attack Harry (147). An illustration of the attack follows this description, and Conor’s figure now includes a blackened face and the monster’s face includes bright white eyes (148-149). As Conor confronts Harry and gets closer to him, he can feel the monster “[come] with him, matching him step for step” (151) and hears the monster voice replying to Harry with him. Conor asks the monster how the invisible man is finally seen, and the monster replies that it made them see. Conor felt the answer “like it was in his own head” and then the monster leaped forward attack Harry (152). Although it is not clear whether it is Conor himself or just the monster who attacks Harry, this ambiguity suggests that the two are combined and attacked him together. The monster’s appearance and its “real-ness” in and of itself is a tangible way in which Conor is attempting to overcome his grief associated with his mother’s illness and her impending death. While Conor has not yet lost his mother, he is approaching a time in which he understands that her death will come and will lose the “bodily engagements” (Krasner 222) that he has associated with her. Therefore, the monster takes up that physical space that his dying mother is leaving behind. Conor fills the “bodily memories of the spaces” (223) through which his mother was with the monster, in an attempt to fill the void that he is aware that will be left behind. Not only that, but it also shows Conor how is own monstrosity, his need to express his guilt and grief in violent ways, is okay by becoming one within and outside of him. Books are often a source of  “vicarious socialization” for children, and are a space for them to reflect and imagine the world on their own terms (Moore and Mae 54). The child reader can then read the magical nature of the text and understand that their own “monster-ness” is perfectly fine. That their real monsters matter just as much as the feelings that they are experiencing themselves. While Conor's monstrosity is can be called normal behavior displayed by a child grieving, it is still violent and deep within himself, only let out when another monster encourages him to.