Essay

Due to Christopher having Asperger’s Syndrome, his vision of the world is completely different. Haddon’s portrayal of the relationship between Christopher and his world moves the responder to a deeper understanding of acceptance in relation to Christopher’s condition. As Christopher’s Asperger’s causes him to struggle with many different experiences, we are introduced to different concepts such as Christopher’s order and disorder, digression and the nature of trust. Which all are particularly evident in the novel, and are conveyed through Haddon’s use of narrative techniques.

Haddon uses the device of digression to fill in the background of the story for the reader and to give the narrator, Christopher, a chance to show his real interests and achievements, especially his astonishing intellect. This is evident in a scene after he gets arrested and goes off on a tangent, beginning to talk about the stars “Some people think the Milky Way is a long line of stars, but it isn’t. Our galaxy is a huge disc of stars millions of light years across and the solar system is somewhere near the outside edge of the disc.” This reveals a misunderstanding of the consequences associated with his actions, and his ability to focus on detail as a form of escape from situations he struggles to deal with which can also be viewed where Siobhan quizzes Christopher on his mother’s affair with Mr Shears. The very next chapter he digresses, explaining his photographic memory with an emotionless example of a memory featuring his mother. “My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things like conversations I have written in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like.” Both quotes reveal Christopher’s intelligence and complete lack of emotion regarding primarily distressing circumstances.”      

Haddon shows that Christopher has an urgent need to see the world as orderly and he has a very low tolerance for disorder. Haddon shows order,...