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The Young Prince
One of the characters in the monster’s second tale, who is described as greedy and very disagreeable. The Apothecary is a healer, and asks the parson to harvest the yew tree that grows in his parsonage. The parson refuses, and even preaches sermons against the Apothecary. But when the parson’s daughters fall ill, he begs the Apothecary to cure them, saying that he will give up the yew tree and essentially all he believes in. The Apothecary refuses, and the parson’s daughters die as a result.
The Apothecary Quotes in A Monster Calls
The A Monster Calls quotes below are all either spoken by The Apothecary or refer to The Apothecary. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Second Tale Quotes
The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary.
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Life After Death Quotes
You were merely wishing for the end of pain, the monster said. Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all.
“I didn’t mean it,” Conor said.
You did, the monster said, but you also did not.
Conor sniffed and looked up to its face, which was as big as a wall in front of him. “How can both be true?”
Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour?
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The Apothecary Character Timeline in A Monster Calls
The timeline below shows where the character The Apothecary appears in A Monster Calls. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Second Tale
...At the edge of the field, the monster goes on, lived a man called the Apothecary, who was a pharmacist that dealt in “the old ways of medicine.”
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The Apothecary, the monster says, had a harder and harder time finding the leaves and berries and...
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...character: the parson, who had two daughters that were “the light of his life.” The Apothecary wanted the yew tree in the parsonage, because it was “the most important of all...
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...infection. Nothing the parson did (praying, going to modern doctors) helped, so he begged the Apothecary to help his daughters. The Apothecary refused, citing the fact that the parson hadn’t allowed...
(full context)
The Rest of the Second Tale
Conor is stunned that the monster destroyed the parson’s house, because he believes that the Apothecary is the bad guy. The monster challenges him, noting that the Apothecary was a healer...
(full context)
