Essay On The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time By Mark Haddon

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Finding Structure During Chaos

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon the protagonist Christopher Boone is a fifteen-year-old boy who has a need for structure. Christopher has hard time dealing with change and when things are chaotic. Christopher has this need because he likes to have a feeling control. Christopher goes out into modern day life and realizes not everything can be in his control, so he must find a way to deal with it. In order to survive in the world, Christopher has to learn how to cope with his need for structure.

Christopher starts out with having the same schedule everyday. He likes this because …show more content…

He does not like being there and multiple times mentions how he wants to go home. After Christopher goes to the bathroom he sees the shelves with cases. He notices a small space on the shelf and pulls one of the cases so he is closed in. Christopher explains he does this because then, “there was no one in there with me,” (163). Christopher being enclosed in a tight space by himself makes him feel better, because he is back in control. No one can tell him what to do if he is by himself and he gains back his control and structure. Eventually he has to get off the train and go to the tube. He sits down on a bench and repeating to himself in his head “Train coming. Train stopped. Train going. Silence,” (178), over and over to calm himself. Christopher does this to learn the schedule of the train and that puts him back in control. He can now say when the train is coming and not be frightened when he hears the noise. After five hours Christopher realizes that there is a sign that tells him when the train is approaching. So he is not scared any more, because he “knew when it was going to happen,” (181). Christopher now has a perfect structured idea of when the train was going to come. He could predict exactly, because of the sign. Christopher learns he can survive in the world if he just finds a way to stay

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