Christopher Boone Betrayal

670 Words2 Pages

Imagine having no emotional response to a situation or experience in life. Imagine not being able to cry at the death of a family member, smile when a goal is achieved, frown on a rainy day, or laugh at a funny joke. Christopher Boone is not a typical teenage boy and has difficulty experiencing these feelings. His world revolves around writing a murder mystery novel as he tries to solve the death of a neighbor’s dog. Through this mystery, he learns of the lies and deceit of his father, as he discovers his mother never died of a heart attack and his father is a murderer. When this occurs, Christopher begins to feel afraid, the only emotion he is capable of experiencing. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, author Mark Haddon demonstrates that betrayal leads to courage …show more content…

In his own personal way, he is able to make his stress and anxiety disappear if only for a moment because he “cannot hear anything else” (Haddon 8). He believes that the scratchy noise will make his concerns vanish. This is not the mark of a person who would be capable of journeying alone through a huge city such as London to find his mother. The fact that minor disturbances send Christopher to his “white noise” radio reflect the fact that he is very insecure and dependent on his safe home for comfort. This is especially emphasized when certain things frighten Christopher so immensely that he becomes “sick,” “curl[s] up on the ground” and groans, sometimes for hours at a time (Haddon 137). Normal everyday occurrences are huge obstacles to Christopher due to his autism, which makes his triumph at the end of the novel even greater when he reaches his mother’s house—all on his own. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon educates the audience about how betrayal can ironically give someone the power to overcome adversity and fear. He shows that even someone with

Open Document