Characters Dealing with Depression in Two Popular Contemporary Novels

Teens struggle with hardships every day. Although nothing compares to the teens that struggled in the holocaust.“Night” by Elie Wiesel is a tragic story of one teen’s struggle at a concentration camp: Auschwitz. That teen is none other than the author, Elie Wiesel, and throughout the book, Elie changes drastically as a person due to his time in the camp.

He says he says he loves his sister Sarah, His Mother, and Father. His little sister Sarah suspects something is wrong due to his behavior because it is unlike him to say, “I love you.” to his family because he is distant towards them for a good portion of the book. Craig asks his mom if he can sleep in her bedroom tonight because he feels more comforted in his mom's room when he is feeling really depressed “bad” is how Vizzini phrases it in the book. Craig decides he is going to do it very late at night preferably early morning. He cannot sleep the night before and his mother is awake as well and makes him a nice bowl of cereal because he mentioned when they both cannot sleep they will eat cereal. After Craig and his mom both finish their cereal he still cannot sleep. He is looking around and finds a book titled, “How to survive a loss of a love” and finds the suicide hotline number and he does the right thing and call them and is transferred to another line called, “Brooklyn anxiety management” because the suicide hotline was occupied and filled. They direct him to the hospital which asks if he would think if it would be best if he institutionalized himself he agrees and says

The curious incident of a dog in the night time is an adult novel which tells the story of a fifteen-year-old boy called Christopher Boone, who discovers that his neighbour’s dog is dead. He did some detective work to solve the mystery of who killed the dog, as he was a fan of Sherlock homes stories, as the story unfolds he finds out a lot more than he thought, regarding himself and parts of the world he did not know existed. Mark Haddon gained influence from Jane Austen who wrote about dull lives of individuals with empathy that seemed somewhat intriguing, he mentions that he was trying to do this exactly with the novel the curious incident of the dog. By taking a life which seemed unpleasantly guarded, and to write about it in a book, where the male protagonist would read a mystery murder and show that if you looked at life with enough imagination it would seem endless (Haddon,

In the novel called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” a fifteen year old boy named

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon uses Christopher’s unique voice to show the importance of human connection and communication within our world. In doing so, Haddon is able to communicate the importance of order and stability in Christopher’s life. This creates a unique perspective of an aspergus sufferer, enabling an exploration of the difficulties inherent in raising an autistic child and thus alters the perceptions of the reader concerning the complex connection between disability and dependence.

In the book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster, many elements are brought to the reader’s attention. Three of these elements, happen to connect with the novel, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” written by Mark Haddon.

What makes fiction novels especially interesting are the larger messages hidden within them. The novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon does just that. The novel centers around a 15 year old genius Christopher Boone who has a mental disability of some sort, struggling with communication because of it. The book is comprised of a murder mystery novel Christopher sought to write after discovering the bloody murder of his neighbor's dog, Wellington. Gradually, the story focuses away from the main conflict and morphs into a complicated story about Christopher’s life. With that, Haddon brings out the complexity and hardships of human life, specifically through the topic of truth and deceit. The truth comes out eventually; fabricating it now will only prolong the unwanted effects later. Also, lies ruin relationships, possibly for good.

Depression- the most diagnosed mental illness in the world- is also the most misunderstood. Depression?a sad or discontented mood?can leave a person feeling lethargic, unmotivated, or hopeless, and in some cases ? contemplate suicide. Unfortunately, depression usually begins as high levels of anxiety and with exposure to trauma in children. Higher levels of anxiety or exposure to stress-inducing and traumatic situations as a child could mean an increased risk of depression as an adult. Although a serious mental illness all over the world in

Instead of having issues with their social status, these two men fell into the despair of loneliness and the need to be a part of something by losing something they cared about. George who is a ranch-hand, travels and works with a strong and mentally challenged man named Lennie. These men spent most of their lives together and have formed a strong bond even if it seems at times that George wants nothing to do with Lennie. “Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world.” (Steinbeck, 11). Unlike most ranch-hand workers, George and Lennie had each other. It was not until a terrible event occurred ending in the death of Lennie that caused George to become a lonely ranch-hand and for him to want to belong somewhere. An old swamp man named Candy also works on the ranch. In his younger years he lost his hand while working. His companion was an old dog that had once been used as a sheep dog. They had a connection because to him, canines are truly a man’s best friend. “ A shot sounded from a distance- the men looked quickly at the old man… for a moment he continued looking at the ceiling… then rolled over and faced the wall.” (Steinbeck, 49). Another ranch-hand worker named Carlson was complaining about how the dog smelled and how the old thing had outlived its needed time. So he did a favor for Candy and shot the dog in the head then buried it. This loss

Eliezer Wiesel and Christopher Boone were both just 15 when they were taken on their life altering expeditions, but it was their determination to return to their families and their strength to survive that lead them successfully to their goals. First of all, Christopher Boone was the disabled protagonist who was faced with many challenges but, it was Chris’s determination to solve the murder and reach his mother and that made him successful in obtaining his many ambitions. Christopher started of his book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by investigating the murder of his neighbor’s dog, but was quickly removed from the scene when the police were called. Although deterring to most, once out of jail, Christopher dedicated most

Attention Grabber: In the “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” we see a young adult, Christopher, traveling through life and overcoming obstacles he never thought he could.

Brosh’s first post on depression, “Adventures in Depression”, describes the grueling progression into apathy she experienced. She makes reference to the obscurity in cause of her depression by saying “Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.” Brosh goes on to counteract this, stating “It’s disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it – you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie.” The oscillation Brosh presents by sharing her nonsensical depression and contrasting it with more typical sadness demonstrates how grave her situation is while presenting the audience with a humorous observation to laugh at. Brosh has no source to try and end the depression she is feeling, since there is no particularly valid reason she began to feel it. This predicament leaves Brosh rather powerless, causing her struggle to be arduous and long. She describes her attempts to snap herself out of depression by being self-deprecating, a process that backfires. Brosh claims “The self-loathing and shame had ceased to be even slightly productive, but it was too late to go back at that point, so I just kept going. I followed myself around like a bully, narrating my thoughts and actions with a constant stream of abuse.” Despite the harshness of this behavior, Brosh creates humor in the way

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon, is a mystery novel about a young boy with Asperger’s Syndrome. Christopher Boone, the narrator of the book, compels the reader to feel the most sympathy towards him, due to his Asperger’s Syndrome. Not only is this portrayed by this affliction but also by his parents’ separation and losing the stability of a family life. Ed Boone, Christopher’s father, can be sympathised with when his wife leaves him and he struggles with being a single parent of a child with a disability. Mrs Shears has also suffered loss when her dog, Wellington, was killed and then when her husband left her for another woman. Haddon retells the life of Christopher Boone, through a variety of different techniques such as repetition, dialogue, expletive language and short sentences.

Every individual faces obstacles that are necessary to overcome, whether it be for equity, justice or honesty. Throughout The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, the main character, Christopher tells his story as a socially awkward teenage boy who has a supposedly deceased mother and lives with his father. Being an adolescent, Christopher faces obstacles throughout the novel that he has to overcome in order to grow. The only thing is, Christopher is not like everyone else. While discovering the truth and embarking on certain adventures, Christopher is in search of a form of justice that he truly deserves.

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.