This essay will be an analytical essay where the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon will be analyzed and interpreted. The focus will be on the language of the novel and the themes and messages.
The language used in the novel is very important, since it gives the reader a deeper understanding of the life and thoughts of a boy with Asperger’s and shows how to interpret the characters. First, there’s the excessive use of “and”. Throughout the story, it is very noticeable that the writer uses the word “and” a lot, which can be seen in the following quotation: “…and then she laughed. So I tore the original piece of paper up and threw it away. And Siobhan apologized. And now if I don’t know what someone is saying I ask them that they mean or I walk away”. In this quotation, the writer uses a total of four “and”. The large number of
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This is most likely due to his Asperger’s syndrome, which can have negative effect on some parts of his life, in this case his writing. It can also be due to him still being a child, since children usually have an excessive use of “and”. In addition to this, there’s the length of the sentences. Some of the writer’s sentences can be up to a quarter of a page long, as seen in the following quote: “And Father was standing on the carpet a meter in front of me looking down at me and he was still holding my book in his right hand, but it was bent in half and all the corners were messed up, and there was a scratch on his neck and a big rip in the sleeve of his green and blue check shirt and he was breathing really deeply.”. The use of long sentences can either enhance the dramatic moments in throughout the story or they can simply be stretched with the use of “and”,
(EXAMPLE,COMMENTARY,COMMENTARY) Another example(Beginning should mention middle) of repetition is when Mr. P says “All your friends. All the bullies. And their mothers and fathers have given up. And their grandparents gave up and their grandparents before them. And me and every other teacher here.We’re all defeated” (42). Alexie uses the word “and” repeatedly, which adds more emphasis and creates an environment in his book that, to the reader, is easier to understand through his perspective. This quote is important because it shows Mr. P. is trying to tell Junior that everyone has given up and he doesn't want Junior to, because he believes in him and has hope for his future. Repetition and punctuation usage is shown again on page 52, when Junior says “Bang! Rowdy punched me. Bang! I hit the ground. Bang! My nose bled like a firework” (52). This shows that after going to a white school, outside the reservation, many other indians despised and felt betrayed by Junior. By using punctuation and a simile, Alexie shows that the hatred even turned to violence from Juniors bestfriend, Rowdy. Another example of violence, from the end section of the book, is when Rowdy hits Junior during a basketball game, causing Junior to have to go to the hospital. (“They stared at me, the Indian boy with the black eye and swollen nose, my going-away gifts from Rowdy. Those white kids couldn't
While Alexie states his voice by using metaphor, he emphasizes the meaning of reading repeatedly in his essay. He stresses how he strives to read variety of books, and he records that,” I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes… I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (18). Alexie lists out all the material he has read with the same sentence structure, yet he does not conclude all these things in one sentence. He exemplifies his passion to reading, for he tries to save his life. Due to his parallel repetition, Alexie impresses the audience by these
Syntax gives the readers an idea of Alexie when he was first learning to read. In the fourth paragraph, he explains on how he started reading. As he was analogizing the world in paragraphs he began reading that Superman comic. For him to understand the text he began piecing the pictures together into words. His use of simple sentences gives the reader a feel to be in his place. “Superman is breaking down the door,” he states that was what he was interpreting from the pictures and then pretended to say those words,” Superman is breaking down the door.” With this picture and these words he concludes that Superman is saying words and those words, “I am breaking down the door.” Alexie’s way of learning to read relates to other people. These readers could have used elements like
In the Novel, The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, we are shown that the truth is not always accurate and that lies are sometimes necessary. Christopher Boone is a 15 year old who has Asperger’s Syndrome, which lies in the Autism Spectrum. Due to this condition Christopher does not understand emotion, metaphors – which he considers a lie – and knows all the prime numbers up to 7,507 as well as all the countries and cities of the world. Christopher’s life revolves around the truth and throughout the novel he is seen to grow and learn to cope with different things when dealing with lies. Most events in this novel are situated around a lie that has been told; nearly every character tells one and has to face the
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time theme analysis essay. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, a novel written by English novelist Mark Haddon is a novel that revolves around the adventure of Christopher Boone and his effort to solve the mystery of the murder of Wellington. The novel presents the theme of difference by the use of traditional narrative conventions. The conventions includes characterization of Christopher,the use of language in the novel, the unusual layout or structure of the novel and the use of symbolism to simplify complicated ideas are only a few of the conventions used in the novel. These four conventions are just a few of the many conventions that works together to present
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,
Narration has a formative influence on the way in which the reader responds to the text. Within his novel, Haddon conveys the perceptions of the logic and order-based reliance of aspergus sufferers through the emotionless mind of the protagonist, Christopher Boone. As a consequence of this narrative style, the reader often feels disconnected and relates his mindscape to the real world. The words ‘I wouldn’t have Shreddies and tea because they are both brown’ unveil one aspect of Christopher’s continuous struggle between emotion and logic. The quote reveals how actions and emotional responses are tied to colours and patterns in an attempt to create order over often-extreme emotional responses. The focus on order is furthered by Haddon’s use of footnotes, which expresses the nature of Christopher’s highly factual mind and reinforces his inherent need for stability and logic. Repetition within the later quote ‘Grabbed hold of me and pulled me… He
The author Chris Crutcher’s choice of language really helps us get a feel for what is actually happening in the story. An example is on page 19 when Mike Barbour was pushing Chris Coughlin into a locker because he was wearing his dead brother's letterman jacket. This shows how cruel kids can be and how people really are.
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.
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.
Alexie compartmentalized his life in paragraphs which shows how important reading was even as a young child.. In the beginning of the essay Alexie writes that he grew up poor with “a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food”(324). His parents hopped from one minimum wage job to another so his life lacked stability. Once alexie realized the purpose of a paragraph he “began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs”(325). Alexie then goes into specifics on how catagorized every part of his life. He organized his life into paragraphs to bring a sense of stability. Making that connection shows that literature was essential in his development since before he could
In Mark Haddon's contemporary novel, "The curious incident of the dog in the Night-Time", the protagonist, Christopher Boone, does seem completely unsuited to narrating a novel, as he takes on his authorial voice, thus demonstrating symptoms of his disability, 'Asperger's Syndrome.' This is a syndrome that enables him to see the world only through his limited perspective, which is closed, frightened and disorientated - which results in his fear of, and inability to understand the perplexing world of people's emotions. His description of events can be somewhat unreliable as he is unable to see the real truths that lie before him. As he narrates, readers are confronted with his peculiarities - whether it is not liking to be touched, his fear
The mind of an autistic person is fascinating and frightening because usually their actions can’t accurately express what their brain is thinking. It is frustrating to try and determine what a child with autism is trying to say, and often results in them being misunderstood. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, tells the story from the perspective of Christopher Boone, a fifteen year old boy with autism. Chris is brilliant at math and science, but is unable to understand or express emotion. His difficult home life further contributes to his illness; he doesn’t have anyone at home who supports him and tries to help him. His teacher, Siobhan, is his only friend and the only person who tries to help him learn to
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - Original Writing Christopher Boone is a fifteen year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome. He knows a great deal about maths and has a very logical way of thinking. Christopher knows very little about human beings and their behaviour and gets very confused and frustrated by most conversations.
According to Richard Chamberlain, “I suppose everyone tells little white lies. Quite often they’re necessary to make someone feel better or prevent the feeling of hurt. Whoppers? No, that’s dangerous and they’ll boomerang” In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon we take a deep dive into how the consequence of a lie destroys a family relationship. Parents use “little white lies” to protect their kids from finding out the truth. In the end he finds out something he never would’ve expected and ends up sending the family on a wild adventure. Christopher’s father, Ed Boone, lied because of his driven motivation, disassociation, and led to complications in his son’s life.