The Curious Incident Of The Dog

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

In the novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon the main character Christopher changes greatly during his adventure.

To write a good mystery novel takes time and only a few authors have been successful in writing them. Mystery novels has been around for a period of time with historical authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle and recent author Stephen King. In these novels, clues are provided by the author and Christopher Boone, narrator of the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, states, “If it is a good puzzle you can sometimes work out the answer before the end of the book” (5). In relation to this, the most valuable information is typically gained throughout the process of the investigation rather than the solution itself. Although the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is not classified as a detective story, the plot still goes through an investigation and shares elements of a mystery novel. The mystery within the story that keeps the novel going is to find the killer of Mrs. Shears’ poodle, Wellington, and in turn, shapes the ending where the audience sees the development of the protagonist, Christopher, through the investigation itself, the journey to London and his overall ability as a writer.

Christopher’s mother was introduced when he reveals to us that she was ‘dead’. He remembers her as a loving but an impatient mother, and prone to breakdowns in the face of his tantrums. She also has shown that she still searches for her son by sending him letters, she exhibits the patience that she lacked in her face-to-face interactions with him, writing forty-three letters over the course of two years, even when she was getting no response. “I counted the letters. There were 43 of them. They were all addressed to me in the same handwriting.” (Haddon 104). She explains to Christopher in the letters that she left their family because she thought they would be happier without her. We also see in the letters the intense frustration she felt with

This isn’t a very big setting for Christopher but it is very important because it leads to the way Chris acts in public, not being able to talk to anyone or just anyone like a policeman. Throughout the book he loses trust and love for his father to the point where he doesn’t want to be with him, here’s why "Then I stopped reading the letter because I felt sick. Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time.

At the beginning of the story, he believed that his mom had died and he ends up finding out that his father was lying to him the whole time. Also, his father tells Christopher to stop looking for whoever killed Wellington, and the reason he tells him to stop is because he did it. His father knows that Christopher's life is hard, and he just makes it harder. For example Haddon writes, “I was cold and I was frightened Father might come out and find me. But I felt safer in the garden because I was hidden. (pg. 126) This shows that not only does Christopher's father make life harder, but he scares christopher and as a father, the last thing you should be doing is scaring your son, especially if he has a mental

In Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the objectivity of truth is placed into question. Throughout the book, Haddon is able to assimilate to his readers the thoughts and experiences of a boy with autism. The way in which Christopher views the world, is drastically distinctive from the majority of other persons. He is unable to distinguish a vast array of emotions and has difficulty emphasizing with and understanding others. Christopher is only able to make sense of other’s feelings and emotions through logical and literal interpretation. Ironically, Christopher’s own thoughts and emotions are void of this scrutiny. As a human being, Christopher is subject to feelings and emotions like everyone else. As a result of his inability to make sense of emotions, he is often forced to construe reasons for his own illogical behavior. Through means of Christopher’s pretentious interpretations, Haddon is able to establish an underlying theme of subjectivity.

Christopher John Francis Boone is a 15-year-old boy with what is assumed to be Asperger’s syndrome. The mystery novel begins with a first-person perspective in the year 1998 in Swindon, England with Christopher finding a dead dog called Wellington. He is accused of murdering Wellington by the owner, Mrs Shears. Trust is a major idea displayed throughout this novel in a number of ways. It's shown in a first person perspective that Christopher finds it difficult to trust others.

(Haddon 122). This shows that all Father was trying to do was to protect Christopher and he didn’t want it to all backfire but as the lie got bigger and stronger it all went downhill. Father was just trying to protect Christopher from the hurtful truth but as it went along it went the wrong way. Christopher was so hurt by this truth that all he wanted to do was run away, in which case he did. Father hid Christopher's book to make sure that he would stop investigating about the murder of Wellington and made sure that he wouldn’t write in that book again, but as Christopher was looking for his book he found a box with envelopes in them, he opened them and started reading. As he started reading he did not know that is whole life was about to change so suddenly. “ Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And father had lied about this” (Haddon 112). This quote was the actual realization that Christopher’s mother wasn’t dead and that father had lied, this was a shocking moment for Christopher in which he couldn’t even talk or think for that matter. Father was trying to protect Christopher from the information of his mother so suddenly leaving, in

When his father is yelling at him for continuing to investigate he brings up that fact that he is Christopher's only caretaker. “What am I going to do with you? What the fuck am I going to do with you?” (Haddon 82) This shows that his father is his only support, and therefore has power over him, by asking what he’s going to do to him, he tells the audience that he can do anything with, or to Christopher. His father has complete and total control over Christopher, even is his own home Christopher has no power, no autonomy. Which when you consider that he has such strict boundaries this leads to a inner conflict. He needs the support of his father and the independence he desires but these are conflicting needs, he cannot have both, meaning that his needs will never be fully satisfied. He will always struggle to find what he needs while also keeping himself in mind. On the same note, his father’s power over Christopher isolates him. Christopher gets into a physical fight with his father, they each land a few blows but in the end, after learning his father killed the dog, we see Christopher decided that he cannot stay in the house, he’s too fearful of his father, and he spends the first night out in the garden, alone and afraid. “I went round the back of the shed, and I squeezed into the gap between the wall of the shed and the fence” (Haddon 124). In this scene

Father has murdered Wellington. That meant that he could murder me…”(122). For the sake of his own safety, Christopher decides that he must go to London to find his mother. On this Journey, Christopher's strengths and weaknesses have been challenged, but in order for him to discover the truth he must overcome these obstacles. Early into his journey, Christopher finds himself lost, frightened and alone. Considering Christopher rarely steps outside of his own hometown, he must learn to put his social anxieties aside as he experiences the pressures of London’s busy streets. When doing so, Christopher goes outside of his comfort zone, he ends up asking many people for instructions, and uses his own knowledge in order to figure out where to go. Christopher even risks his own life in order to save Toby, his pet rat. When doing so, Christopher overcomes these obstacles as he discovers the truth and realizes that maybe he is not so different after all.

Although Christopher was scared of being on his own, and had never been on his own out in public much before, he knew his only option if he didn’t want to stay with his father, was to go and find his mother. He defied the odds by making it from his home in Swindon, to the train station. Then making his way through the train station to the train and then to London, and once in London to his mother’s apartment. Christopher had to put his father aside and was ready to never see him again because of how angry he was, so Christopher stayed determined and made it to his mother, who was in shock herself that Christopher had been told she was dead. So now that Christopher had solved one problem and left his dad, things did go down hill at one point, but eventually did get

Father should realize that Christopher is a person just like Father and he is capable of making his own decisions, but instead he decides to jeopardize Christopher's relationship with his Mother just so he doesn't have to deal with Mother in Christopher’s life. Overall, Father is selfish which leads Christopher to get angry with Father and ruin their

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

In this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, Mark Haddon writes about Christopher John Francis Boone who is an autistic child. Throughout this story Christopher attempts to solve a murder case of his neighbor’s poodle. Christopher wakes up one day at seven minutes past midnight, and he notices the next-door neighbor’s dog laying on the ground. So he decides to go over and check out what happened, soon he found a garden fork sticking out of a dog named Wellington. Since Christopher likes murder mystery novels, he decided to write his own murder mystery novel starting with finding out what happened to Wellington. Throughout his attempt in solving the mystery of the