Christopher Boone

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
‘The curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ by Mark Haddon is about 15 year old Christopher Boone. Christopher is an extremely gifted boy with autism, he is gifted in the subjects math and science but is considered ‘stupid’ for not understanding things like metaphors (which he takes very literally). He does not like the color brown or yellow and hates it when people try to touch him. Although he does not understand human emotion, he relates to animals quite well. But when he discovers that his neighbor's dog, Wellington, has been killed he is determined to find the killer. During his adventures, Christopher experiences negative short term effects but positive long term effects.
Throughout

the book Christopher makes many decisions that will determine his future and possibly his family's future too. It starts off when Wellington is found with a pitchfork through his middle, at that point given Christopher decides to solve the mystery of his murder. As it says in the book “But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog”. This is when Christopher see’s the dog which leads up to his life altering decision. Christopher and his teacher Siobhan write a story about the events that are happening involving wellington's murder, the book is als something that will affect him in the long term. On page 20 christopher declares “I am going to find out who killed Wellington.” . Which is the start of the mystery.
Cristopher also makes a few decisions that affect him in the short term.

At the start of the book on the scene of the crime the police show up and arrest Christopher after he gets overwhelmed and hits an officer. One trait of cristopher is he hated being touched, as in the book it states “the policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like this. And this is when i hit him.”. As a result he is taken to the police station where he let off with a warning.Christopher's father talked fought with him after the incident at the police station. “Yes i was listening to what you were saying, but when someone gets murdered you have to find out who did it so they can be punished. And he said, It's a bloody dog ,christopher, a bloody dog. I replied, i think dogs are important, too. He said, leave it”. Christopher makes many decisions that impact many people in many more ways than i think he knows, some for the better, others for the worse. I know that on a daily basis people with autism are ridiculed for not being “normal” like everyone else. For example i know a boy at my club who has autism and he memorised the periodic table and is incredibly smart , but he’s constantly made fun of for his disability and slow motor control. However i think christopher would be less ridiculed if he had more exposure to people, instead of always being kept in his

house.