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Outline and Literary Analysis of the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
A paper over understanding autism
1. Understand the characteristics and diagnostic features of autism spectrum condition
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Do you ever feel annoyed, frustrated and above all, alone because you are just simply different? Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone experiences this every day due to his autism disorder. Christopher struggles with understanding people, dealing with new surroundings and expressing himself. In the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Christopher proves that despite these deficits, he can find independence in the world.
Readers first discover Christopher’s lack of understanding at the beginning of the novel, when he is told by his father to “stay out of other people’s business.” Christopher then states, “I don’t know what father means when he says, ‘stay out of other people’s business’ because I do not know what he means by ‘other people’s business’
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This problem is first found when Christopher is locating the train station but does not know where it is. To solve his problem he states, “I made a plan. I knew that the train station was somewhere near. And if something is nearby you can find it by moving in a spiral, walking clockwise and taking every right turn until you come back to a road you’ve already walked on” (140). Another example of this is when Christopher is on the train to London and states, “there were lots of people on the train, and I didn’t like that, because I don’t like lots of people I don’t know, and I hate it even more if I am stuck in a room with lots of people I don’t know, and a train is like a room and you can’t get out of it when it's moving” (158). Christopher does not like strangers, therefore, he does not like being near people he does not know, to deal with this issue he stands still and drowns himself in his own world. When Christopher struggles with the environment he is in he finds various solutions, which include making visual images in his brain and creating a new world aside from his
First off, Christopher feels free from the world and that no one can touch him. Before the end of the book, all the problems between Christopher and his father are obliterated by the promise of honesty. In addition, Christopher’s way of philosophy is like no other. He uses basic common sense and logic for everyday thinking. He uses math and patterns to find places he does not know. This way of thinking is very critical to understand throughout the novel because Christopher is constantly thinking outside the box. Christopher believes he is a very special boy. He knows he is smarter than most people are and compares everything to what he believes or sees. He compares cars to good days and bad days, many times throughout the novel. The character Christopher plays in the book is extremely important furthermore, the fights and lies with his father make the book fascinating. Since he has Asperger’s the book is read from not necessarily a different point of view, but from a different way of thinking. Almost all the problems based in the novel are from deprived family dynamics. The household that Christopher is a part of, makes it difficult for him to function normally, therefore, understanding difficult facts to comprehend is tough in everyday
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.
His reasoning for leaving was justifiable being, “[he] thought [his mom] was dead, but she was still alive. And [his] father lied to [him].And he also killed Wellington,” (Haddon). Christopher's reasoning is definitely valid. But although his reasoning for leaving is valid, his trip was very dangerous and could have ended very badly. Christopher is a minor and has a very young, impressionable mind. Along with him being a young boy, he also has mental disabilities that make it hard for him to communicate with others. This communication barrier is extremely harmful when interacting with strangers. This is very apparent when Christopher is arrested. If someone was there to explain to the policeman why Christopher needs to be handled with care instead of using violent tactics, then Christopher would not have gone to jail. If this could happen on his walk home, then imagine what trouble Christopher could face traveling all the way to
Christopher during the course of the text of the novel learns to disregard other people’s judgments.
Christopher is a fifteen-year old boy with Aspergers Autism whose life is full of uncanny surprises. His main focus is on school, and his ability to take the maths A level exams. Unfortunately, that was his focus until he finds Wellington dead on Mrs. Shears’ lawn. Christopher wants to know who killed Wellington and why. He investigates and finds out not only who killed Wellington, but he discovers secrets about his mother and father. In the book “The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time”, the author, Mark Haddon, shows us how courageous Christopher is throughout his journey. According to Aristotle, a man is courageous when he sets himself free from his fears, pain, and poverty instead of running away from it. According to Aristotle’s theory, Christopher profusely shows courage when he investigates Wellington’s murder and travels to London to find his mom.
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.
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 ...
...though Christopher functions more like a computer than a human, but he possesses the ability to think independently, which over all else represents a human characteristic. No machine can operate efficiently without being instructed and following exact orders. Christopher also needs to be told exactly what to do because the vagueness of common phrases is confusing to him, but knows that people break rules and also knows that he can make decisions for himself. On his journey to find his mother, Christopher makes the decision to break away from all of his rules in order to find her. He is able to go to London against almost all odds, and does so by stepping out of his comfort zone and into a world of uncertainty. Even though he uses computer-like thinking to come to the conclusion of going to his mother, it is his underlying human qualities that make the trip possible.
...er 237 where Christopher recounts “Christopher, let me hold your hand. just for once. Just for me. Will you? And i said ‘i dont like people holding my hand.’. Through the implementation of truncated sentences, Judy’s yearning and longing for Christopher’s affection is exemplified. This enables the responder to acknowledge the highly emotional state in which she is in. The setting of Christopher and his mother being alone in the bathroom also aids to the emotional, intimate and highly sensitive nature of their conversation. Despite how affected Christopher may be in realising his mother is alive he is unable to recognise the plea in his mothers voice and fails to reciprocate the smallest morsel of physical affection towards her due to his desperation to keep things orderly and un-changing, therefore exposing the complicated nature of communication between the two.
If the book were to be narrated in third person the reader wouldn’t understand how Christopher feels about certain situations. This is also an affect given in the book because the author wants to project Christopher’s autism spectrum disorder condition to the reader.
Throughout the play, Christopher lacks on his common sense considering that he speaks the truth. A scene that showed his common sense being lacking was at the train station. This was Christopher’s first time taking the train and he does not know what to do, so he told the policeman everything including his dad’s credit card and pin number so he can get money out of the ATM machine. In the play, the police officer had to calm him down by saying, “Shhhh, why don’t you and I take a stroll to the cash machine, eh?” (Stephens 47) . The audience knew that his common sense was lacking at this scene considering that you do not tell strangers about everything that is occurring to you, they may steal stuff that you have or point you to the wrong direction. On the other hand, this is the reason why the policeman wanted to take him off the train because he spilled the beans about his father’s credit card and his home address, which made it simple for the Station Policeman to contact Christopher’s father. Another scene that shows his common sense was when he was taking the A-level Math exam. After traveling back and forth from swindon to London, Christopher showed up to his exam exhausted. He says, “I can see the questions but I can’t read the questions because when I look at the words they all seem confused and mixed up and the wrong way for me” (Stephens 80). The proctor of the exam
First he leaves his father to go find his mom and ends up staying with her for a short time and then she realizes that she is not capable of taking care of Christopher. So then Judy, Christopher’s mother, and Christopher move back to Swindon and reunite with his father. Then when she finally get Christopher to come over his father gets to talk for five minutes and he brings in the puppy from the other room. The puppy represents the father trying to regain the trust of his son. One night, when the mother was sick, Christopher has to stay with the father. Christopher feels safe because Sandy, the new puppy, was sleeping with him. Knowing that the father wouldn't try to come in because if he did Sandy would bark and it would wake Christopher up. The father is wanting the son to come back and live with him. Since the mother isn’t the idea caretaker and even blames it on him. Blaming most of things on Christopher by stating “Maybe if things were different, maybe if you were different, I might have been better at it” (Haddon 106). Judy is blaming most things that happen on Christopher, when she couldn’t handle things that were going on with the family. When conflict arises for jud she leaves and goes away to have Mr. Boone take care of the situation because he knows how to treat him the best. Mr. Boone realized after she left that if he told Christopher what happened that he wouldn’t fully understand why
This was not a simple task as Christopher needs everything to have structure. This is told when Christopher said he had a hard time on vacation, as there were no schedules to follow. He heavily relies on logic and structure to navigate the world. In chapter 19 Christopher says that “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.” This shows that life does not have a structure; this makes it hard for Christopher who needs structure and stability. Throughout the novel the number of destabilized events that Christopher experiences increases, from finding out that his mother had an affair with Mr Shears and uncovering his father’s lies. In chapter 101 he said that “Mr. Jeavons said that I liked maths because it was safe. He said I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end. And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end.” This shows that Christopher had a hard time with his mother’s affair as there was no straight answer on what to
...her cannot read human emotions for the life of him, nor can he understand most jokes or metaphors. This shows that Christopher is a very straightforward person and insists on everything else complying with this. Also, Christopher, like many other children, prefers the visual learning style to the auditory. This is shown constantly throughout the book whenever he uses a picture, diagram, or any other kind of drawing to get his point across.