Upon analysis of Christopher Boone, the protagonist in Mark Haddon’s best-seller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, I would put forth the motion that he represents an archetypical idiot-savant character. The very category, brought forth to literature by recent advancements in psychology, is quite simply categorized as one who displays brilliance in certain categories but shows signs of mental deficiency in all others. Perhaps the most recognizable example in media is that of Raymond in Rain Man, an autistic with extraordinary savant abilities with numbers, exceedingly similar to the very traits displayed by Christopher. A second, equally popular example lies in the wake of Forrest Gump, a savant at numerous athletic tasks yet…show more content… Christopher Boone is shown to display great difficulty within such matters, arguably displaying signs of mental deficiency, thus prompting the ever-rudely named idiot in idiot-savant. The very nature of his struggle ranges from tasks that may seem ordinary to the every-day person: detecting emotions, reading humour, understanding sarcasm. Christopher lives in a world where emotions are not black-and-white, where people are often conflicted with confusing emotional responses and frequently, neurotic solutions to problems. For such a fact-driven person like Christopher, it becomes frustratingly difficult to comprehend others, and sadly, they even more so. This is best seen as “I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them exactly what they meant. I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn't understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people's faces move very quickly”. The effort put forth by Christopher, merely to better understand others, is a touching and evident representation of the struggle that he endures throughout basic societal functions such as communication. The struggle is but an attempt to mitigate his, perhaps natural, disability in these areas. He clearly displays mild autistic tendencies, the very deficiencies necessary to categorize him as an archetypical