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Curious Case Of The Dog In The Night-Time Analysis

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The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, is a particularly perplexing bundle of mystery, and drama, hidden within the thoughts of Christopher Shears. A self proclaimed murder-mystery novel, by none other than the fictional narrator, Christopher, Haddon's novel eventually delves much deeper than what is revealed by it's surface. Although it's self proclamation would dictate this to any reader, not looking to analyze the book, as a murder-mystery novel, it truly is a blend of the mystery that is the world to Christopher Shears, and the external emotional struggle around him he cannot comprehend. Mark Haddon's novel does not focus on what the Narrator is trying to convey while "writing" this book. Using Christopher's inability …show more content…

I could see him out of the corner of my eye. And he said, "I killed Wellington Christopher." ... "When your mum left... Eileen... Mrs. Shears... she was very good to us. Very good to me" ... "I thought she might... eventually... want to move in here" (120-121).
As is seen in this paragraph, the information given would suggest the intended use of all of this dialogue in Christopher's book he was writing was put there for Christopher to inform the reader that his father had done all of this because of Mrs. Shears. But in reality Christopher was only focused in the fact the his father had killed the dog, and nothing else. We can see that reaction in text from where Christopher states, "I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me..."(122). This shows Haddon's book is not attempting to convey the same message to the reader as Christopher is, otherwise the information never would have been added to Christopher's (fictional) …show more content…

Now this may seem contradictory to the previous statement, but there is an explanation. Following the previously quoted event of Christopher discovering his father was the murderer of Wellington, Christopher has technically finished his own goal of writing a murder-mystery novel. Christopher clearly defines this when he states that, "In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is and catch them."(5). Now this is where Haddon's image of the story and Christopher's combine; Christopher now has to solve another mystery, his mother, and what to do with the situation, this allows Haddon's drama perspective to seamlessly flow into Christopher's own experiences and how he would cite them in his book. Christopher, in the finishing chapter, concludes with "I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything." With this concluding sentence Haddon impressively conveys how the story and character grow, and change, and blend with both the reader's perspective from how Haddon is writing the book, and how Christopher is writing his own book. The two perspectives now become one in a universal message of self

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