Novel’s Thought The curious incident of the dog in the night-time is a novel by Mark Haddon. The story is based on the perspective of a smart fifthteen-year-old autistic boy, who includes all sorts of clever visuals to enhance his narrative. But Haddon says the novel is not just about disability: “ It’s about what you can do with your words and what it means to communicate with someone in a book.” Haddon has never used the word autism in fiction. Christopher Boone narrated the novel after finding the neighbor’s poodle, Wellington, with a garden fork. This book is Christopher’s survey report, as he more and more close to the truth, he began to investigate his family's personal secrets, found his father told him the truth about his dead mother …show more content…
Haddon integrates charts and graphic images in the text to convey Christopher’s graphics and systems to process information and sensory data. In the third chapter, Christopher revealed that he can understand the intuition and mood, such as happiness and sadness, rather than the gray shadow, rather than multiple or rapidly changing mood swings. Haddon often uses graphic images and lists to capture Christophe’s way of thinking. This reduction helps overcome Christopher's anxiety when he feels overwhelmed. In this case, he is more willing to follow the order and logical thinking of the digital charts. He groans, “ when there’s too much information coming into my head ”(Haddon 7). In a particularly tense situation, such as a sharp overload, Christopher became violent. When the police would overload him with questions and information about dead dog, Christopher would “groan” back on the lawn before assaulting the police. “That’s when I hit him”. We learned that Christopher’s attitude towards people and events was systematic in the past. Christopher lacks spontaneity, dealing with an orderly and predictable situation and experience. If a situation is chaotic, he can simplify it and modify it from a logical and familiar …show more content…
Throughout the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Christopher overcome the obstacles he faces as a disabled person with a relatively unsound mind by not letting his autism get in the way of his search for the truth. Also, Christopher did it at the end of something which he did not believe he could do it. The end should be a hopeful happiness. Not only did Christopher find his mother, but he established a normal relationship with his father and began to learn how to express his feelings in a way that most people
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.
In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon, English novelist, delivers a murder-mystery of Wellington, Mrs. Shears’ dog through an autistic view. Haddon uses the murder-mystery and other incidents during his lifetime to unwrap specifics of his disorder. He encounters specific situations, such as arriving at the train station, to explain how it takes groaning to calm him down and how he does not allow strangers to lay a hand on him. In his unraveling of his disorder and his quest to solve the murder-mystery, Haddon uses rhetorical devices such as details, metaphors, and imagery to develop his character.
In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, author Mark Haddon demonstrates that betrayal leads to courage
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
While trust is a somewhat common theme in modern novels, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime manages to portray how it affects people in their day to day lifestyle. The book tells the story of Christopher Boone a young boy with autism and his murder mystery novel about the murder of his neighbor's dog. Why this novel is significant is because Mark Haddon tells the story that many young people with autism, like Christopher, live everyday and who’s view on life and the idea of trust and understanding of the world is drastically different than any teenager.
Anger is one of the hardest emotions to control. Often, people hold it in, allowing it to build until it bursts, causing damage. In Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the parents of a child with autism struggle to keep their cool around their son. Christopher’s mother fails to mask her emotions around her son, leaving his father to take care of him. Although his father tries to maintain calm, he often yells at Christopher as his son watches on in careful concentration. Haddon’s authorial choice of making Christopher’s parents lash out reveals irony in that Christopher is the one with the disorder yet is calm, analyzing situations objectively.
Christopher Boone is a 15 year old male young-adult, of British descent. Christopher describes himself as a machine, We have reports of him saying “I sometimes think of my mind as a machine” (Haddon 7). Christopher is currently living with his mother, who has asked not be named, and his father, Edward Boone. Christopher comes from Swindon,UK, where he was born and grew up, until the divorce of his parents were his mom moved away with Roger Shears (Christopher’s former neighbor and ex-husband of his father's former girlfriend). Christopher Boone suffers from many behavioral/emotional problems such as being irritable, unstable, and not talk to people for a long time. He also has problems like not eating or drinking for long periods of time and refusal to being touched. Christopher is currently in High School, enrolled in Level A math. Christopher’s father, Ed Boone, has been renowned for killing his neighbor's dog, Wellington. On page 1, (at midnight) Christopher walks into the neighbor's backyard after looking out his window to see Wellington stabbed with a pitchfork. Christopher says “I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why”. Christopher cared deeply for Wellington, and loved dogs. We have a hypothesis that Christopher had abandonment issues after his mother leaving. Christopher’s trust in his father diminished, but after buying Christopher his own puppy, he started to gain Christophers trust back (“he bent down and put his hands inside the box and he took a little sandy-colored dog out”) (Haddon 219). Christopher also tends to perform poorly in social situations/a school environment. Some examples would be; not interacting with other kids, getting bullied, and acting aggressively when being touched. Some of ...
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.
At the beginning of the story, he told many incidents of the past of screaming in situations where mass amounts of people were in the same area as him. However, near the end of the novel we see him riding on a train and reaching his mother by himself. This realization of self-worth and ability to do anything he sets his mind to was a major lesson that throughout the book Christopher learned. Also, since Christopher is on the autism spectrum when he learned about complex facial expressions, such as worried or scared, it was an important lesson about human nature and communication. During the course of the novel, Christopher discovered his self-worth and the meanings of complex facial expressions. After reading this novel, I learned that the lessons you learn are based largely on where you start and the things you
The biggest reconnection Christopher encounters is with his mother. It begins when he finds a series of letters addressed to him in his father’s closet. Upon reading the letters, he makes the shocking discovery that his mother is alive, not dead, as his father previously tells him. Later, in trying to explain why he hides the truth, his father confesses he kills Wellington. As Christopher comes to these revelations, he immediately decides, “‘I had to go to London to live with Mother.’” (Haddon 131). This is a very powerful example of adapting. Christopher decides on the spot to go live with his mom despite not seeing her for years. The attitude of ‘sudden decisions’ without thinking long and hard about the full outcome is uncommon for him, and yet he comes to this solution in almost no time at all. Also, the wording of the sentence is very specific. He uses the word 'had' instead of 'can', which proves the idea is already set in his mind. As a result, this proves he already trusts his mother and is willing to adjust to go to her. Besides Christopher, his mother also expresses a likewise characteristic of adaptation to renew
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.
The story related to people who really had autism in life, and how their parents would react to them. Because kids and adults with autism would commonly resist to change, and do what they wanted to do, just like how the author portrayed Christopher as a stubborn person who did what he wanted to. Haddon was able to write about autism, because he has formerly worked with children who were autistic, so he decided to write about it. Overall this was a really interesting book, which not only interesting, but also provides readers who are ignorant to what autism is with information about it.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time chronicles of Christopher Boone of Swindon, England. The book is written by Mark Haddon, who formerly worked with autistic individuals, describes the world through the eyes of Christopher, who is self-proclaimed “special needs”. The novel never explicitly says what Christopher’s diagnosis is, but from the text it is apparent that he would fall on the higher functioning end of the Autism Spectrum.
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.