2007 / 5. Choose a prose text (fiction or non-fiction) in which a society or a person or a culture or a setting is effectively portrayed.
Show how the writer’s presentation of the subject makes an impact on you, and helps you to understand the subject in greater depth.
Christopher reflects on meeting Siobhan and how she helped him with his Asperger’s and understanding human emotions. This is shown in the story as, ‘When I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture … and I knew that it meant ‘sad’, which is what I felt when I found the dead dog. Then she drew other pictures: …………, but I was unable to say what these meant.’ The writer uses these sentences to show how Christopher’s Asperger’s Syndrome affects how he lives and understands other people’s emotions. It helps you understand life for Christopher and gives you an insight on how he can only understand certain things. It also shows you how his mind processes information.
The writer uses a different style of dialogue to show the effect of Christopher’s Asperger’s Syndrome. Christopher’s speech is short and quite blunt. He struggles to talk to people and they think he is being cheeky. For example, near the start of the book, the policeman asked him if he killed the dog. He responds without looking at him, saying ‘I didn’t kill the dog.’ The writer uses short sentences, simple words and one word answers to show that Christopher finds it hard to communicate with others. The writer does not use any complicated language, such as similes or metaphors, because Christopher does not understand them. The dialogue in the novel is often highly idiomatic. This highlights a key communication barrier between Christopher and others.
We see very early on in the novel that Christopher, the narrator, describes people and situations in a rather unusual way. In the opening lines, for example, he describes a dead dog, which is lying in a neighbour’s garden with a garden fork through it, as looking ‘as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream’. This comparison shows that Christopher, who is a young boy trying to write a detective novel, is unable to make an emotional response to the scene. In everyday terms, a teenager would be distressed by such an event, however, the author, Haddon, has invented an utterly inappropriate comparison to highlight the emotional difficulties experienced by people with Asperger’s Syndrome, even when they are in some of the most unpleasant circumstances.
Christopher notices a lot of detail due to his Asperger’s Syndrome and describes it more thoroughly than others. Instead of briefly describing what he has in his pockets, when he is taken to the police station after assaulting the police officer, he lists the minor details of everything he has in his pockets – details which do not add much value to the book. For example, he has ‘A Swiss army knife…A key to the front door…’ He does this because he has a photographic memory, recording every detail. This often has no relevance to the main storyline – in this case, when he is in jail. This is effective because it shows us how his mind works and helps us to understand Christopher and the Asperger’s Syndrome.
Another symptom of Christopher’s condition, is the way in which he ‘digresses’ in situations where more average people would be conscious of stress or unpleasantness. Shortly after assaulting a police constable, merely because he touched him, Christopher is arrested and is put in the back of the police car to be taken to the police station. For anyone else, such a situation would be humiliating and distressing, but, as soon as he is in the car, Christopher catches sight of the stars and goes into an explanation of the solar system and our galaxy. This digression, which is baffling to the reader at this stage, gives further insight into the way in which Christopher’s mind works. He just does not respond in the way in which we expect and this unorthodox style makes him unusual and engaging.
The writer uses lots of facts and figures in the text to show how Christopher understands things and that he has an obsessive interest in these details. For example, the chapters are numbered using prime numbers and he lists what is in his pockets. This shows how his brain works with Asperger’s Syndrome. It also helps the reader understand him and his personality. It shows how different he is and how precise with some things. This attention to detail is unusual for the average human being.
In this chapter, the writer shows the reader how Christopher’s brain works compared to an average teenager. This is shown by the way Christopher is arrested and, when he is being taken to the police station, he sees the clear sky and explains the Solar System. It shows the difference because an average teenager would be worried about the consequences of his arrest. The author, Mark Haddon, demonstrates with this digression that, after his assault on the police officer, Christopher’s brain is not focussed on the same concerns as other people.
Through Christopher’s dialogue, the author, Mark Haddon, manages to portray his Asperger’s Syndrome and how it impacts on the social aspects of his life. Haddon achieves this through the way in which Christopher records his conversations with others. Due to his condition, Christopher cannot process facial expressions and body language, which can alter the meaning of a discussion. As a result of this, he uses, ‘And I said…And she said…And I said’ to convey to the reader how the narrator, Christopher, perceives the communication he has with other people.
The narrator uses graphics to explain emotions. His teacher, Siobhan, draws smiley face graphics for Christopher so that he can understand the emotions of other people. This is because he has Asperger’s Syndrome. This helps us to understand how Christopher understands emotions. This is method is used by the writer to show how different people with Asperger’s Syndrome take in information and process it.
