Tina:
Christopher’s condition causes him to see the world in a very subjective way, and as a result the reader may often interpret events differently than Christopher does. What role does this difference between Christopher’s understanding of events and the reader’s understanding of events play in the novel?
There are certainly differences between the perspective of Christopher and that of the readers. These differences are caused by the differences between Christopher's mental conditions and ours. Christopher is unable to understand expressions and feelings of people, and he always tend to use his logical and mathematical ways to see things and solve problems, so he was not able to get the real meaning of people, and he is more likely to doubt others while normal people are more able to understand one's metaphors and implications because they have the ability to understand other's feelings and emotions, and thus they can imply what others really mean behind their words. This difference actually adds a great number of humors into the story. For example, when Mrs. Alexander was going inside her house to get some biscuits and did not come back for quite a while, Christopher left because he thought that Mrs. Alexander was calling up a police. However, this action seems ridiculous to us. This is because we will normally consider that Mrs. Alexander is not young, so it may take some time for her to walk to find and get the biscuits. Therefore, this gap between the readers and Christopher actually sends out a sense of humor to people. Also, this gap strongly indicates that each person has his or her own perspective and opinion toward things. The weirdness of the actions of Christopher in fact creates a better view of the mind of Christopher for us.