The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

In Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, a Marxist critic would be interested in the socioeconomic power that Christopher lacks in comparison to the people he encounters on the train and at the train station. This results in him being oppressed by those encounters.
Christopher shows that he has a lesser amount of socioeconomic power than the people around him when the police officer gets on the train and looks for Christopher. The train begins to move and the officer tells Christopher to “‘park [him]self. And no monkey business’…and [they] sat down facing one another” (Haddon 160). This quote shows the police officer telling Christopher what to do while on the train and Christopher obeying him because of the lack of class power Christopher has against the officer. The police officer has a considerable amount of economic power because he is working for the government. Because of this income, the police officer has more economic power than Christopher, who has no income. This is significant to the novel because it shows how Christopher lacks the ability to make his own decisions due to higher class characters who are capable to control him.

One of the passengers says to Christopher, “‘You are fucking weird, mate,’ and that was a man in a suit” (Haddon 167). This shows the power the man has over Christopher. The suit that the man is wearing signifies that he has economic power, something that Christopher lacks. He has a greater class ranking than what Christopher does and with that, he has the ability to call Christopher ‘weird’ without him saying anything in return. This is important to the novel because it shows Christopher’s susceptibility to oppression because of his lack of power when faced with people who are of higher class than he