In The Heat Of The Night Character Analysis

Although some readers would advocate Christopher as a reliable narrator as he cannot lie, Haddon includes stylistic devices within the narration that lead readers to question whether the protagonist is reliable as a narrator. Reliability sets the foundation of the authenticity of the narrator’s judgement and perspective. It is evident that Haddon incorporates technical and scientific digressions in Christopher’s discourse in chapters 13, 17, 19 and 139, the digressions are explanations that are perceived as unrelated to the plot, but are complimentary to the reader’s perspective of Christopher. Haddon uses digression often to imply that Christopher has difficulties maintaining relevance in the narratives structure and connotes his necessity to explain everything with precision. This accounts to unreliability as he simply reporting the world as he …show more content…
The alteration in font to present Christopher’s mother’s letters are clearly employed to signal the change in the narrative voice, to remind readers that it is her own words they are reading. This is the only other narrative voice presented in the novel. Through the letters that Judy writes we learn more about her decision to leave and this is really key in recognising that she’s a good person and a good mother; she was just trying the very best she could in a difficult situation and she always berated herself more over her short-comings as a mother than anybody else did. ‘And I remember looking at the two of you and seeing you together and thinking how you were really different with him. Much calmer.’ The following quote expresses Judy’s justification for leaving and states the outlining issue that she didn’t fit into the picture, and felt that the two of them where better off without her, this can be suggested by ‘much calmer’ and leads reader to develop the idea that Christopher was not as calm with her and the relationship was not as stronger as