Alternating random insertion of Chistopher's understanding of the world and his inner thoughts with the narrative of an adventure gives a better insight into the reason behind the peculiar mannerism of this child's reaction to his environment.
An amusing adventure of Christopher Boone, a fifteen year old about life, relationships and emotions, who suffers from Asperger Syndrome. He uses deductive logic and mathematic formulas to face and understand his own emotions or those of the grown up. He showed no understanding of his emotions and expresses himself only through the physical responses that his body gave him. His conception and understanding of the world differs from the norm and hence establishes certain rules to make decision making easier. For instance, according to the number of red cars he sees passing by determines how good the day would be while if the cars he sees are yellow it will mean a black day where he would take no risk.
In the investigation/ book writing project that is being done by Christopher, he started out to find out the murderer of Wellington, his neighbor's dog. In the process, he found more. Through the eyes of Christopher, the reality of the brokenness of the world is clearly depicted.
There is much positivity in Christopher. He looks forward to the future and strive towards his dreams. Given his condition, it makes the fulfillment of his dreams stark, but he goes ahead with simple bravery. While Christophers looks into a future of possiblilities, the adults are living lives that shows of the impossibilities of life. The contrast between the two suggest that human emotions are unneccessary and actually detrimental to progress of individuals.
Ed, Christopher's father who was described to be patient and kind, ended up killing Wellington with a garden fork. He lied about Judy's, christopher's mum, whereabouts. He eventually used his fist on Christopher, knocking him unconcious. He degenerated as a person due to his understanding of his own emotions and the immensity of burden that comes from the emotions made him collapse.
Judy, Christopher's mum who was at the end of her wits in taking care of Christoper, left Ed and eloped with her neighbor. Judy left behind Ed and Christopher for a better life. She was leading a loving life until Christopher jumped back into her life. The blissful relationship collapsed. The partner, Roger, could not accept Christopher and it's suggested that he may hurt christopher. The complexity of the situation caused plenty of emotions to arise and breaks the relationship.
The adults, the group who could understand emotions and have a nominal actual perception of the world, are having a very hard time. They kept failing. Failing to keep their act together. Failing to perform their duities. Failing to keep their marriage. All these failures cause the adults to continuously stay at the same point, unable to achieve betterment.
On the other hand, lack-of-emotions Christopher who could only react in a manner out of logic seems to be making good progress. Being able to be absolutely pragmatic, he sails through the storm and difficulties. Although there are several dislikes that he has, he is able to control himself. For instance, he detest crowded places but he was able to overcome it through his logical approach to the situation. In all the situation, he continued to show only positivity. At the end of the story, Christopher re-establishes the possiblities of his dreams.
The narrative seems to suggest that the outcome of having abilities to understand our personal emotions and that of others doesn't seem to be advantageous afterall.
The Author: Mark Haddon
About Asperger Syndrome
The disorder is named after Hans Asperger, a Viennese pediatrician who, in 1940, first described a set of behavior patterns apparent in some of his patients, mostly males. Asperger noticed that although these boys had normal intelligence and language development, they had severely impaired social skills, were unable to communicate effectively with others, and had poor coordination.
According to the Asperger Syndrome Coalition of the United States, the onset of AS is later than what is typical in autism — or at least it is recognized later. Many kids are diagnosed after age 3, with most diagnosed between the ages of 5 and 9.
AS is characterized by poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns, and other peculiar mannerisms. Kids with AS often have few facial expressions and have difficulty reading the body language of others; they might engage in obsessive routines and display an unusual sensitivity to sensory stimuli (for example, they may be bothered by a light that no one else notices; they may cover their ears to block out sounds in the environment; or they might prefer to wear clothing made only of a certain material).
Read more on Asperger Syndrome.
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