Christopher Boone

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon, tells the story of a young boy, Christopher Boone, who lives with Asperger’s Syndrome. By having Asperger’s Syndrome, the readers sympathise for Christopher as the struggles he has because of his disability are witnessed. Readers do not sympathise for others as they have all done wrong such as when Mr Shears sleeps with Christopher’s mother, and Mrs Shears sleeps with Christopher’s father. The author has positioned the reader to sympathise with Christopher in several ways. His inability to read other characters and their emotions, obsessive behaviour, and the fact he cannot touch anyone, are all things which encourage the reader to sympathise for Christopher. These issues

An example of this is at the beginning of the novel when Siobhan, Christopher’s friend, has to write the meanings of the different faces and emotions people show “and then write down next to them exactly what they meant…. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly ” (P. 3). For Christopher, it is challenging for him to fathom the feelings felt by others as he is not emotionally attached to them, and therefore cannot distinguish what people are feeling or what they are trying to say. This is when the police officer arrives and begins to ask Christopher a great deal of questions and since he struggles to understand, ‘They stacking up in head like loaves in the factory.... And sometimes the slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage.” (P. 8) This descriptive simile shows Christopher is unable to process more than one piece of information at a time, and this results in him having one of his ‘moments’ where he presses his forehead to the ground and groans. This helps aids the readers into understanding what it is like for Christopher as he is overloaded with questions and struggles to cope. Readers are given insight into the emotionless world of a child with Asperger’s which is able to influence them into sympathising for