A description of Christopher's relation towards others

By Christin and Edith

His rat Toby He relates well to animals but he can't understand human emotions. Therefore, his best friend is Toby, a rat. Christopher trusts his pet, tells him secrets and has a closer relation to it than to most humans. His father Christopher lives with his father. At the beginning of the plot they are quite close to each other. Later on, when Christopher finds out that his father had lied to him and killed Wellington, the neighbour's dog, their relationship becomes disturbed. He is not able of understanding the complexity of life and does not accept that lying and emotional behaviour are part of life. Mr. Boone treats Christopher very carefully as if he was a little boy. He doesn't tell him everything, only things which Christopher wants to hear or which are not difficult to understand as Christopher has problems to understand the complexity of life and human emotions. Sometimes Mr. Boone gets angry with Christopher because he doesn't do what Mr. Boone tells him, for example when he said that Christopher has to stop writing about Wellington`s death but Christopher would not listen. There is an example which illustrates how Mr. Boone treats his son in chapter 69. In this chapter Mr. Boone argues with Christopher because his son has done detective work without his permission. This show that eventhough he loves his son he can be very angry with him and shouts at him when he breaks rules. His mother His relationship to his mother becomes closer than to his father, eventhough they had difficult times when he was a child, too. In the course of the plot Christopher decides to leave his father and to move to his mother's home. Mrs Boone left Christopher because she couldn't bear it anymore to have so much trouble and stress with Christopher and his handicap. The realtionship with Mr. Shears gave her strenght and relieve. Therefore, she left her husband and Christopher. His teacher His teacher is an important person for Christopher. She became a friend of him. He likes her, because she always tries to give him answers to his questions - and answers are very important to Christopher. Mrs Alexander Christopher starts liking Mrs Alexander. She takes much interest in him and treats him as a normal boy. People he cannot stand There are many persons Christopher does not like. One example is a lady living in his street. Eventhough, she is very polite and seems to be quite normal. Christopher feels very unsecure towards people he does not know very well. Another example of a person he does not like is Mr. Wise. He does not like him because he laughs about his handicap and Christopher gets frightened when he sees him. In general, Christopher gets easily frigthened among strangers.