Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime Analysis

Transition is a prominent theme in ‘The curious incident of the dog in the night time’. The main character; Christopher, provides a lot of lessons to the audience. How differently people’s perspective of the world around them is. Moreover, it involves the characters adapting to new situations. Christopher, an intelligent autistic teenager is easily angered by simple things like being touched. The author brings out his character as anti-social and lacks emotion but that is not the case. For instance he thinks his mother is dead but he does not show much emotion about it (Haddon 24). He is simply practical about his mother’s death and does not describe his true feelings. He discovers the dead Wellington body and makes it his personal business

Christopher is temperamental and his mother has difficulties adjusting to his behavior. Both the parents seem to be having challenges figuring it out how Christopher will fit in their lives. In these challenges, the reader also sees the effect that Christopher’s condition has on his mother, giving the reader more insight into why she left Christopher and his father years before. This hardships even lead to the mother being depressed (Haddon 120). Christopher’s mother frequently feels frustrated by his behavior and his inability to sympathize with her or understand her position on an emotional level. She finds Christopher indifferent to her needs, for instance, when she tries to explain to him that she cannot take him to Swindon for his A-level math test (Haddon, 190). She even loses her job and frequently argues with Mr. Shears. She is overwhelmed by stress and requires pills from the doctor to help her manage it. These details further clarify his mother’s decision to leave years earlier by showing how emotionally taxing she finds to care for

Shear suspect him of being Wellington’s murderer. When Mrs. Shears finds him inspecting Wellington’s body, she assumes he is the murderer and instantly calls the police. Mrs. Shears was simply afraid that she is all alone now that her companion is dead. She might have had the thought Christopher had a hand in Wellington’s death and wanted to get justice. He gets arrested and his father gets him out. His father’s action also shows his commitment to his son with whom he has lived with alone for quite some time. The author also shows that Christopher’s mother got married to Mr. Shears after her first marriage was torn apart. But when Christopher shows up at her home, there seems to be frequent disagreement between her and Mr. Shears who clearly isn’t ready to have Christopher move in with them. Mr. Shears must have foreseen how taxing it will be taking care of Christopher. His resistance to having Christopher live with them would be because he knew that his autism might have contributed to the failure in his mother’s first marriage. His resistance is well depicted when he comes home drunk and stomps into Christopher’s room and angrily shouts at him (Haddon 180). His actions of resistance also depict his fears and fight for his marriage. This is evident when Christopher’s mother choses Christopher over him and decides to leave Mr. Shears with the fear that he might end up hurting her son. To her despite her son being autistic