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disciplinary voice of the superego, advising, “never invisible again. . . but there are harder things
than being invisible” (155). The monster as the id satisfies Conor’s instinctive need, but as the
superego, it limits that satisfaction.

The most important thing to note, however, is that the monster is under Conor’s control,
confirming that the monster is not separate from Conor, but is a physical representation of
Conor’s psyche. The second time the monster interacts with Conor, it tells him, “It is not what I
want from you, Conor O’Malley . . . it is what you want from me” (30). Later the monster
confirms that Conor is the one who conjured it. It tells him, “For this is why you called me” (36)
in response to Conor’s protestations. From the beginning, the monster confirms that Conor is the
reason for his presence; without Conor, the monster would not exist within the story.
Furthermore, Conor is able to summon the monster by manipulating the clock in his
grandmother’s sitting room. Overwhelmed by anger at his grandmother and father and worry for
his mother, Conor struggles to control his emotional response. By moving the hands of the clock
to 12:07, Conor summons the monster at a point at which he is unable to process his grief.

By being able to control the monster and summon it when needed, Conor assumes the
role of the ego, the conscious and strategic component of the psyche. In his application of Freud
to the classic fairytale Puss in Boots, Stefano Bolognini writes that “the boy (in turn a metaphor
for the conscious central ego) is too constrained and weighed down by his difficulties, and
perhaps also by a basic feeling of inadequacy, to be able to think or to act accordingly” (238).
This analysis applies to Ness’s novel as well. Conor’s inability to act effectively, as well as his
feeling of inadequacy at his inability to help his mother, establishes a need for the instinctive id
and the disciplinary superego. Freud says of the ego,

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