The Curious Incident

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon does not illustrate the life of an average teenage boy. He shows us Christopher Boone, a 15-year old boy who lies on the autistic spectrum. Christopher experiences many of the everyday activities most people his age do; he goes to school (where he relishes math), watches TV, and plays with his pet. However, his home life is fraught with conflict, causing readers to think Christopher may be better off without the frightening presence of his father, or the unreliability of his mother. Although Christopher may have the determination to live on his own, his unusual tendencies can be detrimental and outweigh the positives.

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.

“I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them exactly what they meant, I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn’t understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly. (Haddon 3).” This quote reveals that Christopher was unable to understand facial expressions, until Siobhan had taught him them. This was a very difficult challenge Christopher had faced because he was unable to understand other people’s thinking, because he is not able to understand facial

Chris is a charismatic young man, but takes extensive measures to ensure he does not become too close with anyone. By going out into the wild without so much as a letter to his parents,

Throughout the book, Chris is portrayed as an intelligent idealistic individual. “I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each-other so often.”(Pg. 18). This shows his intelligence because was always looking at the bigger picture and question everything that happens in society of people. Trying to figure out why wrong is sometimes right and right is sometimes wrong.

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.

2ND: When it comes to the sensing and intuitive preferences, Christopher was a sensing type of individual. According to the Temperament Type and Into the Wild Notes, sensing individuals attend to various events in the present moment. Christopher doesn't plan out the various details of his journey in a universal order, pack the essential necessities or set a planned agenda; he lives in the current moment. For example, when his yellow Datsun gets destroyed he decides to simple leave it behind. He doesn't scavenge to attempt to

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.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is told through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy named Christopher Boone. Christopher has a highly-functioning form of autism which allows him to understand complex mathematical problems, but also leaves him unable to comprehend many simple human emotions. His inability to understand metaphors, distinguish emotions, and his lack of imagination makes it possible to consider Christopher as functioning like a computer rather than functioning as a human being. Throughout the story, Christopher is faced with many challenges which he conquers using the stable and never changing system of mathematics. All of these factors suggest that Christopher does, in fact, function like a computer,

Without Christopher's will to be a detective the story wouldn't have its rising action leading to the climax, in fact, there wouldn't be a climax. Comparable to the last point without Christopher’s perspective the narrative of the story would be very different. The reader learns Christopher's perspective is crucial to the plot of the story. Whether it is through the small details like being curious or big decisions Christopher's perspective has proven to be crucial to the story and what happens in it, Christopher's

Cognitively speaking, Christopher is mostly at age level. However, he has a learning disability and is estimated to be one year behind in regards to socialization skills and the ability to make friends. He is at age level in regards to formal operational thinking.

At the beginning of the novel Christopher explains "... I never been to the shop at the end of the road without Father..." The

He rarely socializes when he is at school or out in public, and when he is at home, he prefers to be alone his room with his pet rat. “And I really like little spaces, so long as there is no one else in there with me.” (Haddon. 50). In the rare occasion that Christopher associates with people out in public that he does not know, the interaction usually ends quickly due to Christopher feeling uncomfortable and leaving in a hurry. When he had no choice but to engage in conversation with a neighbor who was nothing but friendly to him, he began to think of every possible thing that could go wrong and quickly decided to leave. “And I thought she might be ringing the police and then I’d get into much more serious trouble because of the caution. So I walked away” (Haddon. 40). Even though Christopher does lack social skills, there are still ways he can learn to become more social and ways of interacting with others to better him. Unfortunately he does not put any effort into increasing his social skills, and neither do any of the few people he has a relationship with, causing him to resource to isolating himself because that is what he has always been used to doing. Overall, isolation plays a major role in both novels, causing both main characters to isolate themselves in similar ways. With both characters choosing to isolate themselves comes a great deal of independence.

In the text "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", Christopher Boone suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism (QUOTE). This means he can be sometimes a handful for his parents. It is because of his condition that his mother leaves and his relationship with his father breaks down. But its not just Christopher's fault his parents are having a hard time. They them selves make some bad decisions that lead to each of them feeling frustrated and even forcing themselves to do some morally bad things (QUOTE). It is these things that Christopher parents do that we, the readers, cannot accept, despite Christopher's