Is Christopher Boone In The Curious Incident Of The Dog In Night-Time

In this world, there is no true subjectivity. We see the world as we see it, creating models for coping based upon our perspective, then, eventually, over time, we mold our own “objective” subjectivity. And it is in these distinct versions of reality which give cause to the uniqueness of Christopher Boone in Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time”. In the novel, we gain an intimate glimpse of not just the character of Christopher, but the world how Christopher views it.

To begin, Christopher is remarkably intelligent. He has exceptional memory, describing it like a DVD player “My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things… And when people ask me to remember something I can simply press

In addition, he can understand relativity with fluency, and can multiply numbers with ease. However, what greatly contrasts Christopher’s academic intelligence, is his social intelligence. For instance, Christopher cannot understand metaphors: “The second main reason [I find people confusing] is that people often talk using metaphors (16)”. Christopher describes metaphors as lies, which he takes very seriously. The reason Christopher takes lies so seriously is because Christopher’s entire understanding of the human psyche is dependent upon other people. And when he is deceived, his perception of the world changes. Thus, whereas other people see lies as a mere way of escaping consequence, he sees a lie as destroying one’s perception of their world.When he is unsure of something, he asks someone else. Imagine being locked in a box your whole life, relying on another’s description of the outside world as your sole source of information about what is outside the box. Christopher further describes his lack of understanding of facial expressions: The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words” (16). Accompanying this, Christopher