Christopher Boone

1102 Words3 Pages

Within Mark Haddon’s hybrid, bildungsroman genre novel, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”, central ideas and themes are evaluated within an examination of the concept of complex relationships, that is, the impact of disability on inside and outside family relationships through the impressive fusion between form and style. Christopher Boone, the 15-year-old protagonist, and first-person narrator is rendered an outsider because of the disabling traits of the condition commonly known as Asperger’s syndrome. However, as Mark Haddon shows in a book that refuses to be labelled; Christopher’s constraints also become the source of his strength through individually symbolic and convoluted relationships. His narrative is so simple but …show more content…

His relationship with his son grows progressively complicated due to a collection of events built from lies. Christopher equates truth with love and bases his trust in people on whether they lie to him. “He always tells me the truth, which means that he loves me.” But Christopher has trouble separating truth from fiction. When he discovers his father’s deception he says, “I couldn’t trust him… because he told me a lie about a big thing.” He emotionally disintegrates and is unable to recognize the complexity of his father’s dilemma. Whilst Christopher struggles to understand figures of speech, such as puns and metaphors, he does resort to some similes to understand his predicament – especially those with a literal meaning. He also seeks to deconstruct such metaphors in a literal manner. However, he uses literal and practical similes to explain his logical thought processes such as his response due to Ed’s actions; and as a result Christopher’s familiar environment collapses: “I felt giddy, it was like the room was swinging from side to side as if it was the top of a really tall …show more content…

Judy is honest in the letters she writes explaining her feelings and failures to Christopher. "I'm not like your father. Your father is a much more patient person. He just gets on with things and if things upset him he doesn't let it show.”, she admits failure, in her lack of patience and openly explains to Christopher why she left. Ed avoids being this honest with Christopher until the end of the novel and this is where a clear distinction and vast difference between parenting and relationships is discovered. In another reflection of her honesty Judy admits that she found it hard to cope with Christopher at times. She describes how she felt after an argument with Christopher resulted in her having broken toes. This realisation comes from the fact she lost her temper with Christopher, and had a chopping board thrown, hitting her foot, breaking her toes. Due to this occasion in addition to numerous similar situations, she therefore sensed as if Ed and Christopher were better off without

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