Christopher Boone Character

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon is a novel introduced by its protagonist Christopher Boone in an unreliable first person prespective due to his inability to emphasize with others and his lack of social awareness. Christopher is an unreliable character since he cannot emphasize with others. He is unable to fully understand how others are feeling and he describes others feelings inaccurately to the reader. This is shown very clearly at the end of the novel when he states, “…mother got a job on the till in a garden center and the doctor gave her pills to take every morning to stop her from feeling sad, except that sometimes they made her dizzy and she fell over if she stood up too fast” (Haddon, 216). This points out how Christopher does not actually understand how his mom feels because if he did, he would have described his mothers obvious condition, Depression.

Christopher said many times in the novel that he does not like talking to strangers because he does not like meeting new people, he thinks it is dangerous, and he feels unsafe. When Christopher decides to go to London to his mother, Christopher faces many struggles at the train station. When Christopher feels frightened he “… (opens) (his) Swiss Army Knife in (his) pocket to make (him) feel safe….” (Haddon, 170) or when a man came up to him and asked if he was lost, Christopher took out his Swiss Army Knife since he thought the man wanted to harm him but it was clear that the man wanted to help him which shows how he is feared of human interactions and is unable to understand social