Paper 1 Section A Question 1C(i) How does Haddon make you feel sympathetic towards Christopher’s father in this passage and elsewhere in the novel?

Recalling Skills are needed for you to put together your thoughts to complete your response to Question 1c(i)Some of the relevant chapters in the novel…

43Christopher tells us that Mother died when he was thirteen years old. He also tells us that Father runs a heating maintenance and boiler repair business. Father told him one afternoon that Mother was hospitalized for heart problem and he did not get to see her again.

53Father tells Christopher that Mother dies unexpectedly in the hospital of heart attack at 38 years old. Father does not want Christopher to ask any more questions concerning Mother’s death.

137Father apologizes to Christopher and makes amends by taking him to Twycross Zoo where Christopher tells us about his favourite animals.

127Father reads the book which Christopher has been hiding secretly and gets very upset with him because Christopher continues investigating into Wellington’s murder case. Christopher hits Father when he chides him for being nosey and grabs his arm.

97Christopher chats with Mrs. Alexandra who lives across the street. She does not realize that Christopher knows nothing about what is going on between Father, Mother and Mr. Shear. She explains to Christopher that “before Morther died”, she was having an affair with Mr. Shears.

73Christopher reveals to us that he “used to think that Mother and Father might get divorced” because they “had lots of arguments and sometimes they hated each other”. He also confesses for the first time that he “used to have” many “behavioural problems” but now has less because he is more “grown up”.

157Father is out attending to customers’ emergency needs. Christopher accidentally finds 43 letters addressed to him by Mother in Father’s shirt box. He discovers that Mother is still alive. Father confesses he has lied.

179Christopher decides he cannot live with Father any more and leaves home in search of Mother in London, fearful as he is.

227Christopher arrives at Chapter Road where Mother and Mr. Shears live. Father quarrels with Mother over Christopher. He refuses to go back to Swindon with Father.

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This part of the question requirement tells you in no uncertain terms that you will need to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the novel to such an extent that you are able to pull out relevant incidents / episodes from the novel / to support your response to any questions raised by the examiner. A thorough understanding and appreciation of the novel is expected from you.

We read about Ed Boone through the narrative voice of Christopher. However, owing to his autism, Christopher, regardless of how much he claims to be proud of his novel, is unable to describe his interactions with other people in terms of the mutual exchanges of thoughts and feelings as effectively as he could and should have done. So we can only imagine the prolonged lonely struggles and continual conflicting feelings and thoughts that Ed Boone has to take on because he simply has practically nobody to turn when he needs emotional support for himself. In Ed Boone, Haddon has skilfully created a flawed character who is believably human. Ed Boone is on the surface, a modern day stoical family man who can think independently, feel sensitively and get angry when he crosses his own threshold for patience.

In addition Haddon saddles Ed Boone with the challenge of having to manage his life all alone with a teenager son afflicted with autism, without the help of his wife, who has run away with another man. Haddon makes him deal with a depressive wife who falls out of love with Ed Boone and an autistic teenager son who takes and takes from him and rarely gives back anything in return, despite the fact that it is not exactly the young man’s fault since he is afflicted with autism. Ed Boone is literally, a giver – he is the man of the house, the provider to his family, the caregiver to Christopher and figuratively, the husband who “gives away” his wife to another man.

Both Christopher and Judy Boone have issues of their own. Christopher is only comfortable with Ed Boone because in his own words, his father is always there for him; does the daily chores for him and never lies to him. Judy Boone is depressive and is greatly drained by the daily toil of having to look after Christopher. Each time when Ed Boone arrives at the scene, Judy Boone relinquishes her care-giver role to him almost too quickly and willingly. It is also indeed true, as Christopher “never tells lies”, that Ed Boone is always there for him when he is bailing him out of the prison remand cell, keeping him company after work at home, visiting Twycross Zoo and patiently trying to talk him out of investigating the murder of Wellington any further. We feel for Ed Boone because Haddon has created a genuinely loving and caring father. Not only that, Ed Boone has been consistently and unconditionally devoted to the welfare of his son. To the very end, Ed Boone is the one who proactively tries to mend the damage in his relationship with his son.

Haddon deals Ed Boone a huge blow when he discovers that his wife, Judy Boone is seeing their neighbour, Roger Shears, and has become intimate with him. Haddon isolates Ed Boone further so that he struggles alone in this emotional turmoil. Ed Boone does not have anybody else to turn to for advice concerning the affairs of the heart and he cannot absolve himself entirely from blame with regard to his estrangement with Judy Boone. This is because Haddon hints of communication problems which have existed between the couple when they are dealing with Christopher’s “behavioural problems”. Eventually, it is his clumsiness which causes him to lose his hold on his wife. Haddon’s realistic portrayal of a beleaguered husband in Ed Boone makes us feel sorry, not angry, with him. Ed Boone is an imperfect character but at least, he is human and as humans, we all make mistakes. I am sure I can live with that.

Haddon makes Ed Boone truly the only family member in the story who is capable of managing Christopher and helping him keep some of his idiosyncrasies in check. Haddon places Ed Boone on a very thin line when the secret- and guilt-ridden father has to keep at telling the “truth” to his son, who cannot live with lies or the telling of lies. The most interesting thing on the part of the readers is that, it has taken us quite a while to realize and understand why the frazzled father is uncharacteristically insistent that Christopher should promise to end all investigations concerning the murder of Mrs. Shears large black poodle, Wellington so that he will not continue to bother Mrs. Shears and the other neighbours on Randolph Street.

Haddon also shows us in no uncertain terms, that Ed Boone is a responsible father to Christopher. First and foremost, Ed Boone’s patience and perseverance help him to succeed with managing Christopher’s acting up and other “behavioural problems”. Ed Boone is patient not only with Christopher but also with Judy Boone who is unable to cope with Christopher’s demands and becomes increasingly depressive. Secondly, Ed Boone has to live with his lies when he faces Christopher every waking moment of his time. We can only feel how much he is hurt by his own silence on the subjects of his “murder of Wellington”, Christopher’s insistence on continuing his investigations, the clumsily fabricated story of “death” of Judy Boone to cover up her running away to live with Roger Shears in London. When Ed Boone finally breaks down and confesses his “crimes” to his son, he is forced to face up to a Christopher who unreservedly decides that his father is now “a liar and a dangerous person”. The fact that Haddon has Christopher writing Ed Boone off so easily when his father has ironically revealed the “truth” to him makes us feel even sorrier for Haddon. Everything he has done in the name of love and protection for his son has been in vain after all.

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Despite and because of his flaws and the mistakes he has committed which Ed Boone feels Christopher will never be able to understand, Haddon makes me feel sympathetic towards Ed Boone because he burdens a faithful husband and a reliable and patient care-giver father with lies of his very own creation in the name of loving and protecting his son, Christopher from harm. The fact that Haddon is writing through the autistic, and therefore, (applicable in his particular case), self-indulgent Christopher, makes it all the more poignant for Ed Boone, because Christopher’s narration does not even hint of the father’s feeling of guilt, feeling of emotional loss and his need for somebody’s shoulder to cry on when he needs to relieve his emotional stress.

We will never be able to get a hold on how Ed Boone sees himself in the whole scheme of things because it is Christopher’s story which forms the focus of the novel, although he is a significant supporting character. However, this shortcoming on the part of the son’s narration does not reduce the impact Ed Boone’s role plays out in the story. Haddon deliberately allows Ed Boone to suffer all alone in silence and Christopher’s self-indulgent narrative style either partially or totally blocks out Ed Boone’s inner emotional struggles until much later in the novel, especially after Christopher has accidentally discovered and read five of the 43 letters from his mother, Judy Boone, found in Ed Boone’s shirt box in his room. Haddon has successfully made us feel sympathetic towards Ed Boone because of all the above arguments I have presented.

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