Karakterstudie af Christopher Boone i 'The Curious Incident'

The Curious incident of dog in the night time projects itself as a murder mystery following an autistic 15 year old and self-proclaimed detective Christopher Boone. While in reality the story follows a classic coming of age story structure with good humor and a bunch of realism on top. The story structure is actually more important than you might think. The clever twists and turns of the plot really pulls out the best and worst in Christopher and the people around. Mark Haddon builds a compelling and engaging world in which he hides the various big twist throughout the story.

Christopher is an orderly person while trying to bring order to his world, by solving wellingtons case. The world around him suddenly throws an enormous curveball at Christopher, the curveball being his father’s lies exposed by the letters and Mrs. Alexander. Christopher starts off as a person in hiding, he avoids unnecessary conversations, keeps to himself and avoids strangers. Christopher rarely talks to his dad, he is mostly daydreaming or reading astronomy or math in his room. Christopher’s big dream is to become an astronaut he explains why in the following quote “to be a good astronaut you have to be someone who would like being on their own in a tiny spacecraft thousands of thousands of miles away from the surface of the earth and not panic or get claustrophobia or homesick or insane. And I like really little spaces, so long as there is no one else in them with me.” (83.2) This thought process embodies Christopher character and worldview. Not only those he show his longing after alone he even comes up with a logical solution to his problem. This is something Christopher always does when his he wraps his head around his mother’s death. He explains it in a surprisingly beautiful way “I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or…” (61.12) Christopher will always seek the rational solution to his problems.