Christopher Boone Characteristics

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Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon follows the events in the life of one character, Christopher Boone. He is the main character of this book and he displays his personality trait of anxiety, but at the same time he is brilliantly intelligent and adventurous at many different levels. Being curiously adventurous, anxious and intelligent are the three characteristics that make Christopher a good student. There are many things that make Christopher anxious such as changes in his environment, things that have rules that are…show more content…
He is a genius in math and physics; he is the first from his school to take up the math A level exam. When he grows older, he wants to be an astronaut. “I think that I would be a good astronaut. To be a good astronaut, you need to be intelligent and I’m intelligent. You also need to understand how machines work and I am good at understanding how machines work”.(54) Christopher is brilliant in Mathematics and Science, and has photographic memory. He defines his memory in a weird way “My memory is like a film”. “That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like, because my memory has a smell track which is like a soundtrack” (76). Christopher is very aware of his strengths as well as his limitations, and takes pride in his abilities. The fact that he is sitting his Math’s A-level at the age of 15 is a huge achievement, and Christopher mentions with pride that he will be the first person at his school (a special school) to ever have sat an A-level exam. In addition to Mathematics and Science he is also good in geography as in the beginning of the book he introduced himself “My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities” (2). He can recall tiny details about any event, as well as word-for-word recollections of everything he has ever read. Overall his memory, his…show more content…
Through his murder mystery adventure, he goes to door to door asking about the incident although he is a shy kid as he mention “I decided that I would go and ask some of the other people who lived in our street if they had seen anyone killing Wellington” (34) while he also say “Talking to strangers is not something I usually do” (34). He also goes on a quest to find his mother after finding her letters. To reach to his mother he has to go through a lot but he try not to think like at one instance he says it scared me, having a wrong thought like “I wish I was back at home again”(176). His adventurous nature and his curiosity are also displayed by his efforts in his studies and his knowledge. His attempt in A level Mathematics was very hard for him but he still managed to pass. His difficulty in attempting his exam is reflected in these words “And when I opened the paper and read through it I could not how to answer any of the questions and also I could not breathe properly” (212). But he calms himself down just thinking about his teacher and listening to her instructions as a good student. Being able to do this despite all the things going on around him makes him very adventurous in a unique way. Having a curious and adventurous mind is a special trait that makes Christopher a good

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