Within the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the main protagonist, Christopher Boone, is assumed to have autism, however, this condition is never mentioned. Suggestions deriving from the author Mark Haddon, give the assumption of this from the protagonist’s unorthodox behaviors. With the background of Haddon, assisting patients with autism, the story illustrates the viewpoint assumed one with autism would observe. Furthermore, understanding the lack of the condition with the author, Haddon gives multiple insights through variation of techniques used within the book; both content and style of writing, used to display problems that autistic people reconcile with. Methods such as the use of Christopher’s lack of …show more content…
For instance the misunderstanding of Mrs. Shears shouting at Christopher for holding her dead dog, Wellington; the investigation of Wellington, nonetheless was told otherwise; etcetera. Riveral, Drew English 9A Ms.Sheffield 08/24/15 Essay Additionally, the interactions from other characters show complications Christopher has relating with others as evident “Then she [Mrs. Alexander] turned and went into the house…I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she was telling the truth…So I walked away.” As the protagonist is unaware of Mrs. Alexander’s intent of goodwill, Christopher is unable to presume this, thus left. Finally, the writing of the story is written in first person, giving the reader greater feel towards Christopher’s perspective. His writing is a great influence of the readers’ sympathy with his use of analogy, simple sentences, and tangents. As the protagonist finds it difficult relating to the situations he is with, he uses analogies to help. “They [questions] were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory…sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough…I
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.
Fitting with the common theme between the two novels of the judgment of others, each heroine falls victim to a horrible misjudgment of the character of another. After discovering that the engagement between her brother and her friend Isabella has been broken, Catherine finds she has grossly misjudged her friend’s character, and thinks, “She was ashamed of Isabella, ashamed of ever having loved her” (Northanger 150). Elizabeth, on the other hand, finds her attachment the Wickham wholly inappropriate after receiving her letter from Mr. Darcy. After digesting the shocking contents of the letter, Elizabeth “grew absolutely ashamed of herself.—Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd” (Pride 156). And indeed, as suggested by Elizabeth’s mention of Darcy, this misjudgment goes on to affect each girl’s attachment to her future husband.
In trying to find out who murdered Wellington, Christopher uncovers a box containing letters from his mother addressed to him. Prior to this incident, Christopher’s father, Mr. Boone, told him that his mother passed away due to a heart attack while in the hospital. In addition, Christopher was unable to visit her. The date of the supposed death did not match up with the recent inscription on the letters, indicating his father lying about her death. Mr. Boone soon finds out about Christopher’s discovery, struggling to explain the situation: “I did it for your good, Christopher. Honestly, I did. I never meant to lie...I just thought
Are you able to comprehend the confrontations faced by an autistic child? In the book “the curious incident of the dog in the night time” by Mark Haddon, You are able to understand the challenges faced by the main protagonist Christopher Boone. In order to gain a sense of maturity an individual must overcome difficult challenges. This will be demonstrated by examining Christopher Boone’s ability to learn to become independent and understand social interaction and emotions.
The use of elements of narrative and figurative language help establish a sense that Christopher is ‘the other’ in this novel. The choice of a fifteen year old boy with an unidentified disability as the narrator affects the experience of the story. His choice of words, his individual points of interest and competence to describe situations and prioritise information indicates that Christopher does not fit in with the general society’s standards. The narration in the novel is often substantially idiomatic. This highlights the key communication barrier between Christopher and others. There is an expectation for the character to have more of a sophisticated language but the narration has a simple use of sentence structure. For example, it is presented
In this chapter, as in many other chapters, he intersperses short sentences into his narrative. In fact, some of his paragraphs in this chapter are only 1 sentence long. What kind of information is conveyed in these short paragraphs?
First person narration is a technique which allows the reader to understand perspective. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a boy diagnosed with autism, lives his everyday life experiencing many issues. Mark Haddon chose to make Christopher, a boy with Autism, the narrator of this novel because Christopher’s first person narration has an overall impact on the story shaping it. First person narrative affects the novel as it lets the reader understand how Christopher, someone with Autism, may think about “dramatic” interactions and how he may interpret the actions of others.
Christopher’s real change happens when Christopher finds a stack of letter’s his ‘supposedly dead’ mother - “Mother died 2 years ago.” - writes to him whilst finding the book he was writing. This happens because his father tells him not to mind other’s business - “Father said, ‘Just try and keep your nose out of other people’s business.’” - and in result of not following his dad’s orders gets his book taken away. During his ‘detective work’ Christopher finds out the real reason as to why Wellington’s owner’s husband left as he was one of Chris’s main suspects. He finds out that his mother was having an affair with him. So when Christopher goes to find the book he finds the stack of letters - “One other possibility was that Father had hidden my book somewhere in the house.” -. All this leads to his change because if it wasn’t for his realization that his mother was alive he would have stayed and nothing would have differed. It is what leads to Christopher wanting to find his mother, and on this journey he experiences new danger and he learns how to cope with the real world. I believe the finding of the letters is very important as it helps the readers to sympathize with Christopher it also makes you sad especially because he is autistic and cannot understand why his father would lie to him.
Christopher felt guilty of all the negative, preconceived thoughts he had before going to Leonie and Andrew’s wedding on Friday. The night before, while getting his outfit ready for the wedding he dreaded meeting a few people at the wedding tomorrow. For some unknown, (apart from devious idle gossip by those who relish hate instead of love, war instead of peace and grief instead of joy. And to his surprise he allowed these negative emotions seep through his heart like poison ivy. Worse still, on meeting them he wanted to slap them in their faces without a given reason other than; they deceived, betrayed, misunderstood and forsaken him in ways that are blurry, patchy, but hurts every time he thinks about what was said. Yet within reason his
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 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,
Meanwhile when Christopher says, “I like maths because it solves problems.” This explains how he presents his story in a specific way. He demonstrates this when he writes his chapters with math problems and uses the whole chapter to solve it. This gives the reader an understanding that he solves life problems with the same processes in which he solves the maths problems that he is given. Throughout the novel, Christopher provided pictures and illustrations about what he was talking about.
In the short amount of pages that I have read of this book, I have learned more than I ever knew before about autistic people. Something that caught my attention was when the police were talking to Christopher about the murdered dog, and Christopher couldn’t stand all of the questions being asked, so he shoved his head into the grass and covered his ears. Reading this book has been a good learning tool for me and I believe that it will help prepare me for different situations that I could encounter in the real world. Someday I could potentially have a child that is diagnosed with autism. Reading this book will have given me some background as to how an autist thinks and