The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon depicts the story of fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone as he attempts to solve the mystery of a dog’s death and deal with his own Asperger’s-like behavioral difficulties. As he solves the mystery, Christopher learns the truth about many matters that had been hidden from him and his life is forever changed. Throughout the novel Christopher faces many obstacles and challenges as he follows his quest to solve the mystery; he must overcome literal obstacles such as his father as well as mental obstacles like his own behavioral difficulties that threaten to stop him as he tries to find the one who murdered the dog. By the end of the novel, Christopher finds himself completely transformed …show more content…
in ways such as how he views strangers and his family, yet unchanged in many other ways such as the behavioral difficulties he retains throughout the novel. The primary journey and quest for Christopher in the novel is his literal quest to solve the mystery of the death of his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, and to learn who is responsible for it.
While others may find Christopher’s unyielding dedication to solving the mystery strange, it can be attributed to his behavioral difficulties. Christopher has trouble understanding the reasons and explanations behind the words and actions of other people; consequently, dogs are very literal which allows Christopher to understand them better and trust them more because as he says in the beginning of the novel, “I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking… Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk” (Haddon, 3-4) For this reason Christopher is able to relate more to and trust dogs and other animals more fully, so the death of one impacts him a lot. His behavior difficulties also contribute to the fact that Christopher is very unlikely to give up on something once he has started it; he sticks with something until the end, finding any loopholes needed to do as much as he can to reach his goal. Christopher’s behavior difficulties remain throughout the book as Christopher always feels this sort of disdain for other humans; his desire to solve the crime can also be attributed to the behavior difficulties as they lead him to care for the dog and never give up on his …show more content…
quest. While Christopher never gives up on the quest, his father works intently to get him to five it up. To many readers Christopher’s father may be seen as the antagonist of the story. He is the one who constantly attempts to stop Christopher from continuing the case and learning more. However, his interference is what eventually leads to Christopher discovering the truth about the mystery and his mother. His father tells him throughout the book that he is just worried about him and wants to keep him safe by stopping the investigation. He demands Christopher stops the investigation by declaring him unable to talk to others further about the case; however, Christopher takes his rules literally and finds loopholes which only make his father angrier, such as when talking to Mrs. Alexander he says, “She might tell me something about Wellington or about Mr. Shears without me asking her, so that wouldn't be breaking my promise” (55). When his father resorts to taking the book Christopher is writing, Christopher searches all of the house to find it. His father constantly lies and attempts to stop Christopher in order to cover up his own mistakes. What starts as a murder mystery turns into an awakening experience for Christopher as he learns the truths his father has withheld from him. He ends up learning the truth about his family and realizes just how many secrets his father is hiding from him. The father’s lies and attempts to stop an investigation end up changing Christopher’s life forever as he realizes the truth of his mother and who killed Wellington. This sequence of events that leads Christopher to discovering the truth about things is the main reason why Christopher’s relationship with his father is the most important relationship of the story. As the story begins, nothing is known of Christopher’s father; however, as Christopher investigates and his father attempts to stop him, the truth is revealed. Before the events of the story, Christopher loves his father and knows he loves him as well, but when the truths about Wellington and Christopher’s mother are revealed, his opinion of his father seems to change completely. Christopher goes from seeing his father as a person who he can trust and that will always love him to simply seeing him as a murderer. Christopher’s failure to fully understand human emotions leads him to believe that there is no way that his father could love him and still kill a dog. He stops treating his father like a father and begins to treat him only as a murderer. He believes that one could not hold feelings of both love and hate, so he starts to consider concepts such as, “Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me.”(122) His father is nothing more than a murderer to him at this point. He fears his father enough to face his fear of strangers and attempt to get to London. While it is unclear whether Christopher once again loves his father, he seems to realize that he is more than a murderer as he gives Christopher a dog of his own. When he sees the love his father still has for him through his gift of a dog, he realizes that his father still truly does loves him. In addition to causing Christopher to begin to see people as more than one emotion, his father is indirectly responsible for Christopher overcoming another major obstacle he faces: his inability to interact with strangers.
As the story begins, Christopher is unable to even talk to a stranger until he examines him/her for weeks and determines him/her to be safe to interact with. However, as the story progresses Christopher appears to open up a bit more to strangers. His determination surpasses his fear as he forces himself to talk to strangers such as Mrs. Alexander to ask them about the mystery. He is still unable to trust strangers completely as seen when he flees Mrs. Alexander because he believes she may call the police, but he definitely opens up more as the story progresses. His determination to escape his father who he believes will murder him also leads him to face his fear; he is so afraid that he tries to escape to London, requiring him to interact with many strangers. While he still does not interact well with strangers, this experience awakens him to the fact that not all strangers are necessarily evil. He begins to see that the real world and the strangers in it are not as scary as he initially
believes. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime is an interesting and engaging story. It has an original and creative style that sets it apart from many other stories. The point of view in the story is a very unique one, a child with autism-like traits. This point of view provides a very unique view on normal experiences and situations. The story has an interesting mystery and a tale of family and how lies can destroy. It provides an engaging story for all from start to finish. Christopher is seen dealing with obstacles that are trifling matters to others but provide extremely stressful and challenging situations for him. Throughout the story, Christopher experiences a complete change in many aspects of his character; he begins to realize that people are not open books and are more diverse and capable of more than one emotion at a time. Christopher also experiences a complete change in his family as he learns his presumed dead mother is actually alive, showing the fact that his father lies to him constantly. What begins with the mystery of a dog’s murder leads to a realization of his father’s lies and a complete change in thought for Christopher Boone.
Because he never backs down from anything he starts, Christopher’s pursuit to solve Wellington’s murder remains his primary focus, although Christopher experiences problems throughout the book that affect his resolve. His father affects Christopher negatively from his lies; as a result, the dishonesties turn out to be the central focus in the story. His father made him leave the house to go find Christopher’s mother who he did not know existed. His mom tried to hug Christopher when he got there and he blatantly describes how he hates being touched by his own family members. Christopher’s mom goes in for a hug but he shoves her away so hard that he falls over. Christopher states, “And I pushed her away because she was grabbing me and I didn’t like it, and I pushed really hard and I fell over” (Haddon 191). Christopher feels awful about the incident with his mother and ends up getting along exceedingly sound. Family disputes led to most of the problems in the novel, however, the issues made the book more interesting. Every time Christopher’s dad would mess up with him, his father would come running back to Christopher apologizing for what he did or the way he acted. Christopher’s father was good at taking care of him most of the time but then again was not an straightforward family member all the time. Christopher did not consider his
The book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” talks about a curious boy with autism whose name is Christopher John Francis Boone. Christopher tries to solve a case of Mrs. Shears,his neighbor, dogs skeptical death. Christopher lives only with his father. His father tells him that his mother died in the hospital, but she really didn't die. She is still alive and is living with Mrs. Shears ex-husband. The reason why Christopher’s mother isn’t living with him anymore is because she cheated on her husband with Mr. Shears. Christopher starts to slowly understand what was happening then he goes out trying to find his mom in London.
Christopher Columbus is a mythical hero or in other words, not a true hero. The story of Christopher Columbus is part of the many myths of Western civilization. Also the story of Christopher Columbus represents the power of those that are privileged and in most cases white European men that have written this mythical history. Zinn (2009 exposes the truth about Columbus through eyes of the people who were there when he had arrived which were the Native Indians (p.481). Columbus had kept a personal journal for his voyage to describe the people and the journey. What was evident throughout his journal was the Native Americans were very nice, gentle and kind hearted people (Zinn, 2009, 481). As Zinn suggests Columbus spoke of the Native Americans as” they are the best people in the world and
Christopher during the course of the text of the novel learns to disregard other people’s judgments.
At the beginning of the book, Christopher had thought that his dad would never hurt anything or anyone. Christopher had thought that his dad was a great person, and that he would never do anything wrong. This turned out to be not true. His father denied killing the dog multiple times, but he did admit to doing the act.“I killed Wellington, Christopher.”(p.120) Wellington is their neighbor’s dog. From this quote...
The world is plagued with an inseparable mix of good and evil. People make mistakes, but often start out with good intentions. Often times actions live in the grey zone, a combination of good intentions but bad outcomes. In Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time there are many decisions that could be considered morally ambiguous. The story is told from the perspective of an autistic fifteen-year-old, Christopher Boone, who is investigating the death of his neighbor’s dog. His mother, Judy Boone supposedly died two years back, when in actuality she ran off to London with another man and, in turn, has been shut out of Christopher’s life. His father, Ed Boone hides the truth involving Christopher’s mother, pretending
When Christopher finds Wellington dead on Mrs. Shears’ front lawn, he picks up the dog and strokes it. Christopher is determine to find out who killed Wellington because he likes dogs. Father tells Christopher to leave the dog alone and do not poke into other people’s business. But Christopher has to find out who killed him, thus he decides not to listen to father and go find out and investigate Wellington’s murder. Christopher’s courage began to show when one Saturday, he decides to go around his block and ask questions. Christopher does not like to be around people he does not know and he is scared of some of the people on his block, but he faces his fears--not out of fear, but because he knew it was something he had to do. Christopher mentions that talking to people on his block was brave. He knows what courage is and he knows that he has to be brave. Notice how Ch...
The novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time explores the concept of truth and lies through the eyes of Christopher, the main character, who has autism. His narrative perspective only allows the reader to understand what his own mind is capable of understanding such as his views on lying, facial
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time exhibits real life situations experienced by an autistic, 15-year-old boy, from his own panorama. Christopher’s use of first person perspective ensures that his view on events are explained with accurate, detailed description, enhancing the responders understanding of how the mind of one with Asperger’s syndrome functions. This concept is elaborated on in Christopher’s struggle to become independent as the responder is able to grasp Christopher’s defensive mechanisms to dealing with stressful situations. Christopher narration “so I groaned to make the time pass quicker and not think” during a fit where his tendency to shut down and curl himself into a ball is essentially revealed substantiates his struggle to become independent as his
Nothing hurts more than being betrayed by a loved one, Christopher’s father has no trust in Christopher and tells him that his “Mother died 2 years ago”(22) and Christopher thinks his mother died of a heart attack. When Christopher finds out his father lied, he runs away to live with his mother and his father despritally looks for him and while looking for him realizes the importance of telling the truth. When someone betrays one’s trust, they can feel morally violated. Once Christopher finds his mother, she begins to realize how unfit her living conditions are for Christopher and brings him back to his father, bring him “[..] home in Swindon”(207) Christopher feels incredibly hurt and distressed he does not want to see his father. Whether a relationship can be repaired depends entirely on whether trust can or cannot be restored. Christopher’s father works very hard to regain his trust, he tells his son “[..] I don’t know about you, but this...this just hurts too much”, Christopher’s father is dealing with the result of being dishonest with his son and himself.
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, but it is apparent early in the story that Christopher, regardless of anything else, is capable of independent thought which separates him from the programmed, dependent world of computers.
In conclusion, the most evident theme in this story is that everyone have problems mentally, that they need to overcome. Christopher, the mother, and the father are examples supporting this theme. Although, Christopher finds it difficult to recognize emotions, follow instructions, talk to strangers etc. he tries hard to overcome it. His behavioral problems, and care for others has improved over time proving that overtime his problems can be fixed. Ed Boone, the father has problem managing his emotions and often gets out of control but tries to control them for his son's sake. The mother, Judy Boone, faces problems with impatience but after parting with Christopher, shows significant improvement in her patience levels. Overall, no matter how bad a psychological problem is, there is always a way out if given time.
The curious incident of the dog in the night time was narrated in first person by Christopher Boone however If it was narrated in third person the audience would not have understood the way Christopher was feeling. Communication, Social Interactions, Relationship’s and Christopher’s Autism spectrum disorder were some of the main areas expressed in the novel.
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2004. 4, 8, 120, 133, 158, 184, 204, 220, 221. Print.
The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time will take you on a ride of emotions as Christopher John Francis Boone fights through his autism to prove his innocence to everyone and himself as well. A story of a young boy on a mission to find out who killed his neighbor's dog, but while on the journey he reveals secrets about his family that was kept from him all these years. Mark Haddon did an amazing job on showing how the truth can affect someone in the text, not only the main character Christopher, but the others as well utilizing Characterization.