Christopher is diagnosed with the mental disorder Asperger’s syndrome. The disorder causes him to have difficulty in socializing with others. Due to his mental condition, Christopher can not understand facial expressions or emotions. Neither, does he like to have eye contact or chat with others especially strangers, because Christopher’s ability to understand sarcasm and jokes is limited. Christopher says himself that ‘[he] can’t do chatting’ (page 70). Most of his statements are based on logical deductions. Therefore, he prefers to be all by himself or living in a world where everyone is just like him as he describes it in his favourite dream on page 242. One of the reasons why the narrator has not changed throughout the story is that Christopher has an organized mind-set. He knows what he wants to do. He wants to take both Physics and Maths A classes and subsequently attend a University. Christopher sees himself as a different standard compared to others. He insists that his way of thinking is the right way and has no appreciation of other’s thoughts or find them valid. Consequently, Christopher is very naive and unwilling to collaborate. This makes is hard for people …show more content…
Furthermore, Christopher does not have the ability to empathize. “I have to go back to Swindon, and mother said, Christopher you’ve just only got here.’ ‘I have to sit my Maths A level’ ” (page 246). Instead he has been gifted with mathematical skills. The math skills are the only thing Christopher knows, he really can master. He says on page 247, “ I’m going to get an A grade. And that’s why I have to go back to Swindon”. Christopher wants to be acknowledged. People frequently find him peculiar in his way of being. No one really understands him and that is why Christopher dislike
point of view on christopher is he is a brave good hero but in reality he is a paradox.
This reason, was because of his parents were kind of hard on Christopher and there was a whole lot of secrets. From what I learn in certain classes, is when a child that finds out a parents secret they become more isolated because they wouldn't want to trust this person. This way of finding out these secrets could have been the trigger to Christopher's actions. This could cause a situation that Christopher needs to find who is and explore and complete a task to come home and show that he did something to be considered that he could make his own decisions because his parents were always pushing him and telling him what to do.
This quote is evident of Christopher’s ability to make risky decisions and follow through with them, especially since this is uncharacteristic of him. In addition, Christopher does not recognize that travelling on a train by himself is unsafe when he has never travelled on a train before. Christopher assumes he knows everything like planning his routes, but going to London from Swindon is not considered to be a train set toy. This emphasizes that Christopher does not have a rational explanation to what he does instead, makes decisions in haste to attempt risks that can be dangerous for him. As can be seen, analysing the novel from Christopher’s point of view shows how he develops to become a dynamic character by conquering his fears and in turn, allows him to be self-motivated.
Christopher is poor at communicating with other people because that was unnecessary in the past. However, right now he needs to communicate with other people, which he had barely done, in order get to his destination. The author states, “And it was exactly like having flu that time because I wanted it to stop, like you can just pull the plug of a computer out of the wall if it crashes, because I wanted to go to sleep so that I wouldn’t have to think”(page 177). This shows that Christopher is poor at communication due to his rejection to communicate. When he enters the train station he is being buried by the massive amount of informations that he never know about. He panicked due to these informations and strangers in the station. The author
“And I was shaking and I wanted to be back at home, and then I realized I couldn’t be at home because Father was there and he told a lie and killed Wellington, which meant that it wasn’t my home anymore, my home was 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG, and it scared me, having a wrong thought like, I wish I was back at home again, because it meant my mind wasn’t working properly” (Haddon 176). While Christopher is at the train station about to go to London he realizes how lost he is in his world and that he cannot go home because his father has betrayed him, and that he must keep going but he cannot escape the thought of going back, which makes him feel like his mind is betraying him. The fact that I had let people have such control in my life and emotions and to see that they could honestly care less about my well-being made me feel like anything they did or said didn’t mean a thing to me, it grew to the point where I feared heartache and I thought it was easier for me to block out everything, which lead me to distrust everyone but one thing I did not realize was that I would also cause myself heartache. Thus, it is clear that in difficult situations Christopher and I felt betrayed by our own minds and feeling like that makes you feel insecure. Your mind is one of the most important part of you and if it
Supporting reason 1: In the story, he soon finds out his mother that he thought was dead, was alive and his father had lied to him about his mother's whole new life because of an affair that separated the two. Christopher, instead of jumping to conclusions decides to wait and keep him calm until he had all the pieces put together. Chris would often say things as “I didn't have enough information “ or “i decided not to think about it anymore that night...could easily leap to the wrong conclusion” (Haddon, pg.99) whereas most would have immediately gone ballistic. Or when he agreeing goes on the walk in the park with Mrs. Alexander even though he feels uncomfortable around unfamiliar faces. He does just as John Roush discusses in “college should be an adventure” Roush establishes one must keep an open mind to even while being faced with the struggles college kids will face. He explains “Adventure is an attitude” and, “be mindful that whatever the activity, you are preparing yourself for an opportunity yet to be discovered.” (Roush, pg. 1)
2ND: When it comes to the sensing and intuitive preferences, Christopher was a sensing type of individual. According to the Temperament Type and Into the Wild Notes, sensing individuals attend to various events in the present moment. Christopher doesn't plan out the various details of his journey in a universal order, pack the essential necessities or set a planned agenda; he lives in the current moment. For example, when his yellow Datsun gets destroyed he decides to simple leave it behind. He doesn't scavenge to attempt to
Christopher's lack of basic understanding is a major cause for additional unpredictability in his life. In order to cope with the unpredictability, Christopher resorts finding order through his use of logic. Christopher also detaches himself from emotions
Alexander, Christopher’s interactions with strangers improved throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Christopher did not have the best interactions with strangers, due to his tendency to always stay far within his comfort zone. His interactions also include how he interacts physically. He was not able to control his emotions the way others would’ve liked him to in the beginning, which this quote proves correct, “I didn't like him touching me like this. And that is when I hit him.” An example from the end proving that he grew and learned to interact better would be when he was at the train station trying to get around. Although he was not 100% comfortable speaking up and asking for help, he was able to, due to the confidence he got from his experiences throughout the
Next, Christopher had to start doing things on his own, which increased his confidence in doing things by himself and being alone. Finally, Christopher started to build relationships, which increased his confidence in being around other people. Overall, it is clear that the obstacles that Christopher
Christopher does not hide the fact that emotions are very bewildering to him. From the beginning of the story Christopher mentions how Siobhan, his teacher, gives him a card with emotions on them. However, he rips it up because when Christopher tells Siobhan how he used the card to decipher human emotions in real time, she laughs, and Christopher loathes people laughing at him. Christopher lists his many ‘Behavioral Problems’ many of which he gives justification for; however, these explanations tend to be unsatisfactory to the reader, still pondering how someone who relies so much on logic could have so many illogical dislikes. Christopher is aware that many of his likes and dislikes are illogical and that others do not see the world the same way he does, but this does not stop him from attempting to navigate through the world from a different angle than the one accepted as normal. Christopher’s candor about his life and how he feels about certain situations allows one to understand how he struggles with
He rarely socializes when he is at school or out in public, and when he is at home, he prefers to be alone his room with his pet rat. “And I really like little spaces, so long as there is no one else in there with me.” (Haddon. 50). In the rare occasion that Christopher associates with people out in public that he does not know, the interaction usually ends quickly due to Christopher feeling uncomfortable and leaving in a hurry. When he had no choice but to engage in conversation with a neighbor who was nothing but friendly to him, he began to think of every possible thing that could go wrong and quickly decided to leave. “And I thought she might be ringing the police and then I’d get into much more serious trouble because of the caution. So I walked away” (Haddon. 40). Even though Christopher does lack social skills, there are still ways he can learn to become more social and ways of interacting with others to better him. Unfortunately he does not put any effort into increasing his social skills, and neither do any of the few people he has a relationship with, causing him to resource to isolating himself because that is what he has always been used to doing. Overall, isolation plays a major role in both novels, causing both main characters to isolate themselves in similar ways. With both characters choosing to isolate themselves comes a great deal of independence.
Christopher’s condition also causes him to be very particular about everything in his life, such as his time tables to
In the beginning of the novel Christopher mentions that he doesn’t like talking to stranger is not something he “usually “ (34), does and he “didn’t like” (34), talking to strangers but for this case since he was going to be a detective to find out who killed the dog Wellington he had to talk to his neighbors. Another example in when Christopher walks to his school and he’s never walked to school before he had always took the school bus but he didn’t want to be Father her walked. When he got to his school he see’s Father's van he felt like he was going to get “sick again” (137), and he knew that he was going to feel sick so he didn’t “sick all over”(137), himself. When Christopher arrives in London he asks a lady for the directions to Mother’s address and when she told him where to go. Christopher took a deep breath and said to himself “I can do this” (172), because he was doing “really well” (172), going to his mother’s house. These examples show how Christopher has changed throughout the
Christopher is very different to normal people as he has Asperger’s Syndrome, a mental illness which deprives him of his social abilities and emotional interpretation. Christopher changes from an innocent unknowing boy to one of newfound truths and knowledge. At the start of the book he is very shy and protective of himself, only talking to those that he trusts. The author writes “It takes me a long time to get used to people I do not know. For example, when there is a new member of staff at school I do not talk to them for weeks and weeks. I just watch until I know that they are safe”.