Trust Issues

Christopher finds out his mom isn’t really dead, but she left to live in London because she didn’t feel needed anymore. He finds this out by finding letters his mom wrote to him that his dad had kept hidden from him. When Christopher’s dad finds him with the letters he decides that he will no longer keep any more secrets from Christopher and tells him he killed Wellington, his neighbor’s dog. This makes Christopher very confused and scared. He gets so scared he decides he must run away from his dad and go live with his mom in London. He goes on a huge adventure, while simultaneously running from the police. He makes it to his mom’s apartment, but later on, his mom decides that she has to leave because she no longer loves her husband. They end up going back to Swindon, where Christopher’s dad lives and his mom finds a small apartment. He still has to stay with his Dad though sometimes, which scares him because he can’t trust his dad. His dad attempts to apologize but Christopher still doesn’t know what to do. “You don’t have to say anything, not right now. You just have to think about it. And, um . . . I’ve got you a present. To show you that I really mean what I say. And to say sorry. And because . . . well, you’ll see what I mean.” (p.213) Christopher seems to be very tentative when it comes to trusting people. This is very similar to how he doesn’t like strangers, in fact, I’m sure they are related. He basically acts like his dad is a stranger because to him, his dad is a stranger. Christopher must be really hard to gain the trust of, especially if he won’t trust his own dad, even if he apologized so many times. This happens to me sometimes, not to the same degree, but if one of my own parents gets really mad they’ll usually apologize, even if I completely deserved it. The difference between us is that Christopher rarely forgives people. For me, however, I will just forgive my parents and get on with it, although I can’t be lied to so extremely. The way Christopher is portrayed makes it seem like he cares more about the fact that his dad killed the dog rather than hid the fact that his mother left him. Even how the passage is written shows how Christopher really views his dad as a stranger because he cannot trust him. Christopher is a very hard person to get to know, mainly because he has trust issues. He also is very scared of people he doesn’t trust, I guess that he could be considered very timid.