After Christopher’s father, Ed, admits to killing Wellington, things between him and Christopher dramatically change. Now, Christopher is hurt that his father told him lies and believes that Ed could hurt him. Christopher has a deep connection with animals; he even likes hugging them. But, when it comes to humans, he can’t even hug his parents. Christopher relates to animals more because they don’t use irony, sarcasm, or jokes; things that Christopher can’t understand. So, when Ed kills Mrs. Shear’s dog, to Christopher, it’s equal to or worse than killing a person. Now, Christopher fears his father will hurt him “Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn’t trust him, even though he had said “Trust me,” …show more content…
Christopher is so frightened by his father, he sleeps in the front yard, wedged between the wall of a shed and fence. Out of fear and the inability to trust his father again, Christopher makes the decision to trek to London and live with his mother, even though he hasn’t seen her in years. Later on in the day, after Christopher has made the journey to his mother’s flat, his father tries to apologize, again, and Christopher doesn’t even say a word. Later on, when Christopher moves back to Swindon, Ed buys him a puppy in the hopes of rebuilding their relationship. But even with the dog, which Christopher really appreciates, he is still unable to talk to Ed. With the numerous apologies his father provides and time to forgive, Christopher shows no progress in rebuilding the relationship he and his father once …show more content…
He realizes that his mother never died, instead, she moved to London, and that his father has been lying to him. Christopher crawls on to his father’s bed, rolls into a ball, and cries. However, the tears he sheds are not because of Judy abandoning him, but as a result of his father lying to him. In one of her letters, Judy writes that she thought Christopher would be better off without her. But, it was the fact that she couldn’t handle being a mom to Christopher. He was challenging; breaking her toes and refusing to eat, but she is not justified in in her actions. Judy abandoned her son when things became difficult. Christopher doesn’t comprehend that he is the reason she moves away, so his wave of emotions are results of his father’s lies. Christopher values trust and honesty like he thought Ed did too, so when he finds out that his father has been lying to him for years, he breaks down. Both of Christopher’s parents are flawed, but Ed is, by far, the better caretaker. Ed is, for the most part, always patient with Christopher and when Judy leaves, without any warning, he is able to raise Christopher as a single parent. He tells Christopher that his mom is dead, which was not the right move, but it was with good intentions. He didn’t want Christopher to know that he was the reason his mom left “I did it for you, Christopher. Honestly, I did. I never
The last thing Christopher’s father would have wanted is for Christopher to have felt pain, anger or abandoned. Christopher’s mother, Judy, decided to leave them both for various reasons which lead to the father’s lie. Ed told Christopher, that his mother was hospitalized and later on that she had died all to spare his feelings of the truth regarding the mother’s absence in their lives for two years. One of Christopher’s mother’s reasons was due to her not being
Because he never backs down from anything he starts, Christopher’s pursuit to solve Wellington’s murder remains his primary focus, although Christopher experiences problems throughout the book that affect his resolve. His father affects Christopher negatively from his lies; as a result, the dishonesties turn out to be the central focus in the story. His father made him leave the house to go find Christopher’s mother who he did not know existed. His mom tried to hug Christopher when he got there and he blatantly describes how he hates being touched by his own family members. Christopher’s mom goes in for a hug but he shoves her away so hard that he falls over. Christopher states, “And I pushed her away because she was grabbing me and I didn’t like it, and I pushed really hard and I fell over” (Haddon 191). Christopher feels awful about the incident with his mother and ends up getting along exceedingly sound. Family disputes led to most of the problems in the novel, however, the issues made the book more interesting. Every time Christopher’s dad would mess up with him, his father would come running back to Christopher apologizing for what he did or the way he acted. Christopher’s father was good at taking care of him most of the time but then again was not an straightforward family member all the time. Christopher did not consider his
As seen in the stories, Christopher was undermined by deception from his parents throughout his childhood. Chris’s father, Walt, dated his mother, Billie, while he was currently in a ‘committed’ relationship with another woman. Walt had children with both of his partners despite the fact that they were completely conscious of each other for quite some time. Tired of his infidelity, Walt’s wife finally gained enough courage and divorced him. Consequently, Walt decided to marry Billie, the woman he had an affair with. In addition, this also indicates that Chris is legally considered a ‘Bastard child’. This term is used for children that are born to an unmarried couple. As time passed, Christopher discovered all his father’s faults. He became besotted and considered his entire life to have been a complete lie. Above all, he felt extreme guilt since he believed that Walt abandoned his other family because of him. In addition, Walt and Billie continue to deceive others even to this day. Billie reveals, “We were dedicat...
As Rob’s Dad gets to hear everything that Rob was trying to hold in, from the loss of his Mom. His Dad understands and has the same problem holding back his emotions of the loss of his wife, and how it impacts Robs
He wants to achieve his goals and let nothing stand in his way when he does. In addition to Christopher's persistence inside the classroom, he also kept on with the investigation despite what his father said. After Christopher discovers the letters from his mom, he does not quite understand what it means because he believes his mom to be dead. But his father tells him not to look through the letters anymore and puts them in a cupboard in his room. "It was six days before I could go back into Father's room to look in the shirt box in the cupboard ." (102) Even though Christopher's father tells him to leave the letters alone, he directly disobeys him to look for the truth within the letters. With his persistence he builds up enough courage to go into the letters and find out the truth about his mother. Because of this he finds the truth and finds his mother in London. Through Christopher's persistence he disobeys his father to find the letters and find out what he has been hiding from
Christopher abnormally obsesses over everything in his life. This is due to his severe OCD, which he struggles with throughout the novel. Likewise, Christopher’s OCD is depicted as a reaction to the lack of control over his environment. He copes with situations he cannot control by looking for various details within his life that bring him peace-of-mind him. For instance, before the policemen arrive at the crime scene of the murder of the Poodle, he felt tense and anxious caused by Mrs. Shears’s neurotic behavior in reaction to viewing Christopher peer over her dead dog. Later, when the police arrive to investigate the crime scene, Christopher feels a surge of comfort because the policeman is a representation (in Christopher’s mind) of order. When the police arrived Christopher thought: “Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and
At the beginning of the book, Christopher had thought that his dad would never hurt anything or anyone. Christopher had thought that his dad was a great person, and that he would never do anything wrong. This turned out to be not true. His father denied killing the dog multiple times, but he did admit to doing the act.“I killed Wellington, Christopher.”(p.120) Wellington is their neighbor’s dog. From this quote...
Him and Carine, his little sister, were inseparable as siblings, yet he never said a single goodbye to her and that left an empty feeling for her. One time Carine mentioned how their parents Walt and Billie were consistently too busy for them, “Mom and Dad put in incredibly long hours,” and the reason why they had to was because money was tight for them (Krakauer 107). Chris concluded that the love from his parents was forged because of Walt’s affair with his first wife until the divorce, but actually was too blind to recognize their sacrifices and hardships. In fact, even after two years had passed since Chris left to Alaska, Billie had woken up from a dream dealing with him calling to her for help, “I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it. I wasn’t dreaming.
Not only did Chris not want to call his parents, he did not want to see, speak or even come in contact with them. After Chris discovered his father’s affair he had no desire to even have parents at all. He was so angry at everything they have done. In a letter to his sister, Chris explained that their parents were being irrational and he had passed his breaking point: ‘“’I’m going to divorce them as my parents once and for all and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live’” (64). Chris believes his parents have caused so many thing to go wrong in his life that they do not even deserve to have him anymore. To come to this statement and the conclusion of divorcing his parents, Chris had to have been emotionally hurt to a crippling point. He cannot see that they are only trying to protect him and give him a happy, secure future. Chris lived thinking that his parents were horrible people and did not feel loved or cared for, and that led him to rebel. Not caring about what his parents’ feelings crippled Chris with anger and led him to, ultimately, his
is a murderer. When this occurs, Christopher begins to feel afraid, the only emotion he is capable of experiencing.
Ed is the one that kills Wellington, he tells Christopher that his mom, Judy, died of a heart attack, and hides all the letters to him from his mom for two years. Because of his actions, the reader is to believe that Ed is a very sketchy character and that he is not to be trusted with what he says. He is consistent with his lies, even though the lies end up revealed, but he is an inaccurate character because the audience and Christopher believed he was telling the truth and he wasn’t. Ed tries consoling Christopher after all the lies are revealed and he quotes, “I’m sorry, Christopher. I promise you, I never meant for it to turn out like this,” (122). He admits that the reason he killed Wellington was because he had gotten into an intense argument with Mrs. Shears about her caring more about her dog rather than for Ed and Christopher, and in result, Ed took his anger out on the dog. However, he knew that Christopher liked Wellington so he never told him that he was the one that killed him because he didn’t want to hurt Christopher. He also says that he told Christopher that Judy died because Ed didn’t know how to deal with it himself, so he thought that if he couldn’t handle it, how would Christopher. That’s why he didn’t let Christopher know that his mom abandoned him. Given the situation, Ed’s lies are to a point reasonable, but not excusable and Christopher knows that. Ed is a character that we can’t always trust, he is too inaccurate during the
Nothing hurts more than being betrayed by a loved one, Christopher’s father has no trust in Christopher and tells him that his “Mother died 2 years ago”(22) and Christopher thinks his mother died of a heart attack. When Christopher finds out his father lied, he runs away to live with his mother and his father despritally looks for him and while looking for him realizes the importance of telling the truth. When someone betrays one’s trust, they can feel morally violated. Once Christopher finds his mother, she begins to realize how unfit her living conditions are for Christopher and brings him back to his father, bring him “[..] home in Swindon”(207) Christopher feels incredibly hurt and distressed he does not want to see his father. Whether a relationship can be repaired depends entirely on whether trust can or cannot be restored. Christopher’s father works very hard to regain his trust, he tells his son “[..] I don’t know about you, but this...this just hurts too much”, Christopher’s father is dealing with the result of being dishonest with his son and himself.
In conclusion, the most evident theme in this story is that everyone have problems mentally, that they need to overcome. Christopher, the mother, and the father are examples supporting this theme. Although, Christopher finds it difficult to recognize emotions, follow instructions, talk to strangers etc. he tries hard to overcome it. His behavioral problems, and care for others has improved over time proving that overtime his problems can be fixed. Ed Boone, the father has problem managing his emotions and often gets out of control but tries to control them for his son's sake. The mother, Judy Boone, faces problems with impatience but after parting with Christopher, shows significant improvement in her patience levels. Overall, no matter how bad a psychological problem is, there is always a way out if given time.
...er 237 where Christopher recounts “Christopher, let me hold your hand. just for once. Just for me. Will you? And i said ‘i dont like people holding my hand.’. Through the implementation of truncated sentences, Judy’s yearning and longing for Christopher’s affection is exemplified. This enables the responder to acknowledge the highly emotional state in which she is in. The setting of Christopher and his mother being alone in the bathroom also aids to the emotional, intimate and highly sensitive nature of their conversation. Despite how affected Christopher may be in realising his mother is alive he is unable to recognise the plea in his mothers voice and fails to reciprocate the smallest morsel of physical affection towards her due to his desperation to keep things orderly and un-changing, therefore exposing the complicated nature of communication between the two.
In the beginning of the story, Christopher explains how close him and his father are as they only have each other. Christopher's dad has hidden things from him his whole life,