CIDNT-Characters
To start, the title of this blog post and the ones posted after this all contain CIDNT before the real title of the post. Why do you ask? Well, the simple explanation is to distinguish which blog posts are about The Road and which ones are about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Plus, it gets very tiring after typing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time over and over again throughout key passages and now blog posts. It's just a time saver for the reader and myself.
At a first glance from reading the first few chapters of the book, the few characters that there are seem very troubled. The main character, Christopher, has autism and has strange outlooks on his daily life and also life as a big picture. This is not new to me in anyway. A good majority of books read this year have had a troubled and odd main character who fights their way through the world. A prime example of this is Milkman in Song of Solomon who clearly has some issues who overcomes them when he goes on his adventure. From the start, Chris is depicted to go through a similar act as Milkman did due to his strange behaviors. One of Chris's biggest tendencies that drive his actions everyday stem from his bus ride to school. Depending on what cars he sees will change his entire day. When at school, "Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks...I said that some people who worked in an office came out of their house in the morning and saw that the sun was shining and it made them feel happy, or they saw that it was raining and it made them feel sad, but the only difference was the weather and if they worked in an office and the weather didn't have anything to do with whether they had a good day or a bad day" (24). To Christopher, seeing certain cars will determine how his entire day will go even though they have no real effect on his day whatsoever. To everyone but him it seems silly and makes him even seem crazy in a way. However, his logic is entirely there because "normal" people do the exact same thing with the weather. Although the weather has a larger effect on people's days because it largely effects what they are able to do, it is still the same concept. Chris has an entirely different perspective on the world that no other person is able to see or even understand. Later in the novel when Chris was asking around the neighborhood about knowledge of who killed Mr. Wellington, the only reason he felt the confidence to do so was because he was having a Super Good Day. In a way, his system of determining how his day will go is a way for him to break his social barriers and go outside of his comfort zone. Something that many people have a hard time doing, and they are considered "normal".
The other main character involved his Chris's dad, Ed Boone. However, the word main is used very loosely because the lack of main characters basically bumps him from a side character to a main character. Chris's father his depicted to be a very troubled man who struggles to take care of his son after his wife died. Although most of the time his main goal is to protect Chris, it usually ends up in yelling and possibly even violence between the father and son. The tension between Chris and his father his heightened when Ed reveals to Chris that he killed Mr. Wellington and that his mother is actually alive. In Ed's eyes he was just trying to protect his son from his cheating wife who wanted no part in their son even though she did very much. However, this drives a wedge between the father and son. Even though Chris's father's actions seem extremely bad, "[Ed] did it for your own good, Christopher. Honestly I did. I never meant to lie" (114). Although he might not show it, he only wants to protect his son. He is a single father who has gone through hell and he does not know how to handle being alone with his autistic son. Although he is made out to be the bad guy of the story, who can blame him? His wife cheated on him and his newly found love in Mrs. Shear's also left him. He is a broken man who just wants to care for his son. Something that every parent wants to do.
At a first glance from reading the first few chapters of the book, the few characters that there are seem very troubled. The main character, Christopher, has autism and has strange outlooks on his daily life and also life as a big picture. This is not new to me in anyway. A good majority of books read this year have had a troubled and odd main character who fights their way through the world. A prime example of this is Milkman in Song of Solomon who clearly has some issues who overcomes them when he goes on his adventure. From the start, Chris is depicted to go through a similar act as Milkman did due to his strange behaviors. One of Chris's biggest tendencies that drive his actions everyday stem from his bus ride to school. Depending on what cars he sees will change his entire day. When at school, "Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks...I said that some people who worked in an office came out of their house in the morning and saw that the sun was shining and it made them feel happy, or they saw that it was raining and it made them feel sad, but the only difference was the weather and if they worked in an office and the weather didn't have anything to do with whether they had a good day or a bad day" (24). To Christopher, seeing certain cars will determine how his entire day will go even though they have no real effect on his day whatsoever. To everyone but him it seems silly and makes him even seem crazy in a way. However, his logic is entirely there because "normal" people do the exact same thing with the weather. Although the weather has a larger effect on people's days because it largely effects what they are able to do, it is still the same concept. Chris has an entirely different perspective on the world that no other person is able to see or even understand. Later in the novel when Chris was asking around the neighborhood about knowledge of who killed Mr. Wellington, the only reason he felt the confidence to do so was because he was having a Super Good Day. In a way, his system of determining how his day will go is a way for him to break his social barriers and go outside of his comfort zone. Something that many people have a hard time doing, and they are considered "normal".
The other main character involved his Chris's dad, Ed Boone. However, the word main is used very loosely because the lack of main characters basically bumps him from a side character to a main character. Chris's father his depicted to be a very troubled man who struggles to take care of his son after his wife died. Although most of the time his main goal is to protect Chris, it usually ends up in yelling and possibly even violence between the father and son. The tension between Chris and his father his heightened when Ed reveals to Chris that he killed Mr. Wellington and that his mother is actually alive. In Ed's eyes he was just trying to protect his son from his cheating wife who wanted no part in their son even though she did very much. However, this drives a wedge between the father and son. Even though Chris's father's actions seem extremely bad, "[Ed] did it for your own good, Christopher. Honestly I did. I never meant to lie" (114). Although he might not show it, he only wants to protect his son. He is a single father who has gone through hell and he does not know how to handle being alone with his autistic son. Although he is made out to be the bad guy of the story, who can blame him? His wife cheated on him and his newly found love in Mrs. Shear's also left him. He is a broken man who just wants to care for his son. Something that every parent wants to do.
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