Christopher’s parents inflict quite a bit of emotional pain on him-his mother leaves him without saying goodbye and his father lies about her death. However, it becomes evident that in fact, his black-and-white view of trustworthiness has blinded him to the deceptions of those closest to him, whom he trusts most-his parents. Alexander’s yard because she’s taking too long to bring out the cookies she’s promised, and he thinks she might be calling the police on him.
Because of Christopher’s worldview, losing trust in his father means not only that he can’t believe what Ed tells him, but that if Ed could kill a dog, he’s quite likely to kill Christopher, too.Īt first, Christopher seems overcautious about whether or not people can be trusted, such as when he leaves Mrs. When Christopher’s father admits that he lied about Christopher’s mother dying and that he killed Wellington, Christopher decides that he can no longer trust Ed. Either someone is trustworthy or they’re not, in which case he thinks they’re entirely unpredictable and might hurt him.
Alexander is an elderly woman makes her no less automatically trustworthy in his eyes.įor Christopher, trust is completely black and white. Christopher’s judgments of people are often different from general social attitudes, so the fact that Mrs. Alexander makes gestures of friendship which Christopher returns very warily, believing that at any moment she might lead him into danger. Christopher is very cautious whenever he meets anyone he doesn’t know. Even the school environment, where most people take for granted that teachers are essentially good people, does not reassure Christopher-he refuses to interact with new teachers until he has observed them for a few weeks to be sure it’s safe for him to trust them.
Whenever Christopher meets someone new, he assumes they’re untrustworthy until he can see some proof to the contrary. These categorizations often influence whether or not Christopher feels that he can trust certain people, and his social interactions depend almost entirely on whether or not he trusts the other person. Christopher has trouble understanding other people, so he usually fails to perceive nuances in people’s personalities, instead categorizing them in a certain way that dictates how he interacts with them.
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