Conflict
Person vs. Person
- Christopher has an ongoing conflict with his father, after learning that he in fact was the one who killed Wellington. He gets so scared of his father that he decides to run away from home and live at his mother's house in London.
- Ed Boone and Judy Boone get into an argument because Judy is sick and tired of caring after Christopher due to his behaviour. When Ed tells her to calm down and to pull herself together, however, she hit him, and they slowly began to drift apart.
- Ed Boone and Roger Shears are mad at eachother because of Judy's decision to start seeing Roger more often, and moving in with him. Ed is upset that he found out that she had an affair with Roger, so he never wants to see him or her.
- Later in the book, Mr. Shears and Judy Boone become mad at each other because of the risk of bodily harm towards Judy after she pulls a drunken Roger away from Christopher during the night.
- Christopher is in conflict with himself because his disabilities limit the actions and thoughts that he can make, which in turn affect his overall behaviour.
- Ed Boone also has an ongoing conflict with himself because after the fight with Judy, he tried to pick himself up and put himself together again. While Mrs. Shears was helping him out after hearing about Judy "dying", Ed starts to develop feeling for her. However, Ed felt that she was spending more time with her dog, Wellington, than with him. Therefore, Ed took matters into his own hands and killed him.
- Christopher has problems dealing with society because he doesn't know how to act in public. His inability to take in a lot of information at once always confuses him, and as such, hinders his ability to interact with society.