Curious Incident of a Family Break Up

Curious incident of a family break up Mark Haddon expresses the importance of family relationships within society itself. He does this through the clear and perfect understanding of the deficiency and absence of love portrayed between his parents and himself. Christopher’s suffering of Aspergers syndrome is transparent towards his parents as they find it difficult to react to Christopher’s behavior.

Both parents had to deal with Christopher’s persistent obsession with mathematics, numbers (prime numbers used throughout the beginning of every chapter) as their son is a single minded human being with and extraordinary talent faced upon factual data that only he can obtain as many cannot. Christopher’s mother is an important factor among his life as he is told a lie from his father about his mother passing from cancer. But in fact from the hard troubled arguments from the relationship of his parents towards each other, Christopher’s inability to deal with affection is a huge factor of why Mr. and Mrs.

Boone are driven apart. Christopher does not understand how affection works, which would mean that Mr. and Mrs. Boone do not have a romantic relationship to begin with. If Mr. and Mrs. Boone do not show affection towards each other, it is not setting a very good example towards Christopher. When Christopher’s mother wrote him, she said,” We had a lot of arguments like that, and by the end we stopped talking to each other because we knew it would end up as an argument and go no where. I felt really lonely” (107). Mrs. Boone is giving an example of how she runs away from all her problems leading up to when she left Christopher.

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The stress of having to raise a child like Christopher drove her to leaving the family. Christopher can be difficult and irritating in many ways because he is unable to show how he feels towards his parents, so they never know how he is feeling. Also, he never knows how his parents are feeling. When Christopher's mother said, “Christopher, let me hold your hand, just for once. Just for me will you? I will hold it hard”(194). Christopher told her that he did not like holding hands. It proves that he has no knowledge of what love means and affection towards your family. Also, Mrs.

Boone said, “I could not walk for one month, do you remember? Your father had to look after you. I remember looking at the two of you and seeing you two together and thinking how you were really different with him. You were a lot calmer, and it made me sad, because it made the think that you did not need me at all(108). This quote can be confusing, because it is portraying that Mrs. Boone as upset that Christopher did not need her, but yet she leaves the family because of the stress of her autistic child. Mrs. Boone has a confusing way of showing affection, leading Christopher of not having a very good example of a mother.

The lack of communication between Mr. and Mrs. Boone and Christopher puts a tremendous amount of stress on the family because the Boone’s never know what Christopher may be thinking or wanting at that time. Mr. and Mrs. Boone has to adjust to his ways of communication making it difficult for other people to understand how he communicates. For example, when the policeman grabbed Christopher, but they were never meaning to harm him(8). Christopher thought that by the policeman grabbing him they were trying to hurt him, when only they were trying to get his attention.

Also, Christopher does not understand the importance of communication which means that i does not mean a lot of him. The Boone’s do not always know Christopher’s needs and wants. This leads up to Mr. and Mrs. Boone fighting over their views of what Christopher wants. Mrs. Boone would get very stressed out about not knowing what Christopher wants and just basically give up. Christopher can be a difficult child because he can sometimes not know when it is time to stop, and that is what is making Mrs. Boone so stressed out. Christopher might think it is time to play when really Mr. and Mrs. Boone are wanting some quiet time to relax.

Haddon persuades the important quality of Truth throughout the novel towards the direction of our society. Christopher’s obsession with truth is organized among the world through his perceptions on the basis. During the story as he feels secure, he needs order and certainty, and facts and logic provide this security. Christopher feels the need to be ‘scared’ and yet ‘shaky’ towards the things that didn’t happen which makes him feel insecure etc. ‘Metaphors’ are a language technique in which Christopher cannot understand. He believes metaphors bring lies towards society as they are false stories and fiction falls within the limits of lies.

Christopher accepts ‘similes’ as this technique provides truthfulness and they also emphasize the appearance of what two things have in common. With the acceptation of hard facts within Christopher’s life he refuses to obtain the knowledge and believe of god and the afterlife. Christopher says that he ‘can’t tell lies’. This is the way he truthfully copes with life itself and the imaginary events which fill him with ‘the infinite number of things’. Christopher then pushes the boundaries of lying to himself through continuing the investigation when he told people for example his father he would stop.

His father then tends to find out with the quote of “you knew exactly what you were doing”. During the novel we find out as well as Christopher that his mother is true in fact alive. This is a great impact among Christopher as he hates lying as he quotes “A lie is when you say something happened which didn’t happen. ” Another quote is “I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person…it is because I can’t tell lies. ” The repetition and usage of the word ‘And’ creates a sense of comforting and secureness for Christopher as well as a few number of rituals.

The usage of ‘And’ provides Christopher with the ability to recount every information or incident he has accounted. As for me it is annoying to read but the fact that Christopher has a good memory for speech is observed. One of the rituals Christopher obsesses with is the observation of cars on the way to school as he organizes them into red meaning good and brown and yellow meaning bad. He implies this to his normal day routine. So if he sees a red car he will have a good/normal day but if he sees a brown or yellow he knows his day isn’t going to go too well. Mr. Jevons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always in nice order and I said I did” The justification he gives for using these rituals is formed on the ‘scared’ and ‘shaky’ responses which mean that his great need to impose order on a lack of a word is in use. Christopher believes telling the truth is an important aspect among lives as he is revealed that his father killed Wellington the dog and told him that his mother had passed which makes Christopher become very frightened of his father.

Christopher flees in terror as he quotes “…he could murder me, because I couldn’t trust him, even though he said, ‘trust me’, because he had told a lie about a big thing” The composer achieves real aspects of telling the truth and telling a lie which happens on a normally daily basis. Christopher’s constant need for attention pushes the Boone’s apart because they have no time for themselves. Mr. and Mrs. Boone revolve their lives around Christopher’s needy lifestyle which led to them to spending every moment with Christopher. Mr.

Boone says how he is going to get Christopher ready for his bath, change him, and get him ready for bed(115). This is an example of how he spends every moment revolving his life to Christopher’s need for help because of his disability. In the book, The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher display a long list of the things that his mother and father have to deal with on a daily basis with his disability(46). All of these things are responsibilities and other things that Mr. and Mrs. Boone have to keep on their minds through the day.

Having an autistic child is like having a second job to Mr. and Mrs. Boone. Mr. Boone gives no attention to Mrs. Boone, because he is always pursuing his life towards the neediness of an autistic child. Mrs. Boone may the want attention from another male, leading her to putting all of her attention towards another lifestyle. This stressful lifestyle caused Mrs. Boone to leave and want to have another life of no worries or responsibilities. Also, Christopher says that he is nervous about his parents getting a divorce because they have a child with behavioral problems(45,46).

This explains one of the reasons why Mrs. Boone wanted out of the family because she wants to have children that do not give her such a headache every single day. Christopher’s confidence of truthful matter, in logic and facts, does not defend him from the real society. His many efforts to pursue the truth of Wellington’s murder results in the discovery of his understanding with the world as it is based on a lie. Christopher also learns that although he likes to have things “in a nice order”, real life is often very deranged, and he cannot always control this.

By the end of the novel the composer achieves Christopher’s balance as he returns to normal life, he is regained both parents and has the knowledge that he has coped in difficult circumstances. Mark Haddon achieves the novel with great aspects of this and portrays the actual concerns among a society. Mr. and Mrs. Boone would have a much more suitable relationship if they would set their priorities straight, and make time for each other to be able to go out and have a romantic night together. Obviously, they did not have a romantic relationship, so that could have driven Mrs.

Boone away from the family, along with the difficult lifestyle of raising Christopher. In conclusion, Christopher lived a very spoiled lifestyle by being shown attention by his parents all his life. He could not help that he had to have attention shown towards him because of his disability, but it led to the miserable lifestyle between Mr. and Mrs. Boone. If they could have balanced out their schedules, Mr. Boone would not have had to lie to his child about his mothers death, when really she moved away while having an affair.

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