The novel ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ written by Mark Haddon, relies heavily on the literary device known as a Red Herring. The Red Herring is presented through multiple themes throughout the novel, and by doing so the reader is lead to believe the wrong idea about the real mystery the novel holds. On the first page of the novel, the narrator, Chris Boone, begins the story with the murder of his neighbor's dog, Wellington. Whilst reading, the reader is given information which infers our protagonist, Chris, has aspergers. After the murder is solved, the novel continues to go on, revealing a new mystery involving Chris’ family. In summary, the novel starts by stating it is a murder mystery, although reveals by the ending, …show more content…
that it is in fact a drama and the murder was a Red Herring for the true mystery in the novel. Near the beginning of the novel the young protagonist discovers clues which lead the reader, to believe that the ex-husband of the dead dog, Wellington’s, owner may have killed Wellington, creating a new Red Herring, Mr Shears.
During the novel, Chris states that a murder is commonly committed by a member of your own family. By stating facts and using statistics, the reader believes that it is possible Mr Shears committed the murder. “5. If it was c) I only knew one person who didn’t like Mrs Shears, and that was Mr Shears who knew Wellington very well indeed.” chapter sixty-seven, page fifty-four. In this quote, our protagonist explains to the reader why he believes Mr Shears may have murdered the dog, he does this by stating facts which forces the reader to believe Chris and consider Chris as a reliable source. During the novel the reader is not given any direct clues to any other suspects and follows along and agrees with Chris’ actions and beliefs. One way the author shows this is by making Chris keep investigating Mr Shears and trying to find evidence to prove him guilty. “This meant that Mr Shears was my Prime Suspect.” chapter sixty-seven, page fifty-four. This quote directly states who the suspect is and this short, direct sentence motivates the reader to agree and continue to believe everything the narrator states. With all things considered, Mr Shears did not commit the crime and his intention in the novel was to mislead the reader as well as the young …show more content…
investigator, Chris, as Chris followed this Red Herring it proved he was an unreliable narrator. Chris’ aspergers was another Red Herring, putting unimportant and irrelevant information in the reader’s head, distracting the reader from the clues in the real murder. The author has done this by altering the linear progression in a pattern which shifts from the murder story to irrelevant information about Chris and his life. By doing this the reader easily gets distracted from the murder, forgetting any relevant clues that may have been exposed throughout the past chapters. “First we must determine which is the longest side of a triangle with sides that can be written in the form n2 + 1, n2 - 1 and 2n (where n>1)” appendix, chapter two-hundred and sixty-nine. A sign of Chris’ aspergers is being highly gifted in one or more areas, which is shown throughout the alternating, irrelevant chapters. Throughout the novel there are subtle signs proving his asperger's, these include chapter numbers being prime numbers instead of in numerical order and each extra chapter being about Chris’ mindset. The transition from chapter to chapter is sharp and not smooth, you have to pick up on the setting and story change yourself, there is no warning. “Then I went home.” chapter 97, page 77, “Mr Jeavons said that I like maths because it was safe.” Chapter one-hundred and one, page seventy-eight. Finally, Chris inserting unrelated chapters and transitioning from chapters sharply, is a Red Herring for the whole murder case of Wellington the dog. Wellington’s death and the whole investigation was a Red Herring for Chris’ family secret.
Half way through the book the murder is solved, the culprit owns up and confesses. “And he said, ‘I killed Wellington, Christopher.’” chapter one-hundred and sixty-seven, page one-hundred and fifty. The murder is solved just over half way through the book, the book is a total of two-hundred and sixty-eight pages long, and continues on to talk about Chris’ life and adventure beyond the murder. During the novel, Chris finds a new discovery, his mother, who died two years ago, is still alive. Chris finds letters from his mother which state she is alive and well and in fact did not pass away, she ran off with a new lover. “And I said, ‘i thought she was dead, but she was still alive. And Father lied to me. And also he said he killed Wellington.’” chapter one-hundred and ninety-seven, page one-hundred and sixty-six. In summary, the family mystery was not mentioned in the beginning of the novel although was still the main asset of the novel, inducing the murder to become a Red
Herring. In conclusion, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ relies on the literary device known as a Red Herring. The Red Herring is shown through three main aspects of the novel and by doing so, the reader is led to believe the novel falls into the murder genre when it falls into the drama genre. The three main themes, the suspected murderer, Mr Shears, the protagonist’s aspergers and the complete murder mystery are all a Red Herring for one another, creating a chain reaction which all lead up to the investigation of Chris’ mother and revealing the truth behind each character. Finally, Each aspect of the novel built up throughout the novel to finally reveal the novels true story.
The knife that served as the murder weapon was sourced from the kitchen. Their bodies, which were burnt quite badly, were found in their bedroom, which was upstairs. This crime scene was uncovered by fire officers who responded to a 000 call by a neighbor at approximately 3:34am, after Jeffrey had told him his parents and his brother were dead. At this point, Jeffrey creates his alibi that his brother Christopher is responsible for the murder of their parents and setting the bodies on fire, but it was he who murdered
When they found the body, they automatically started looking for clues as to why the person was killed. They wanted to find anything that looked suspicious so that they could search for the killer. When they were looking for clues as to who the killer was, the killer caught on to them. The killer realized that he was being followed up on, and he made it his obligation to get to the main characters instead. The killer got a hold of one of the main characters in the woods, where he killed his second victim. The other two main characters did everything in their power to find their friend and help her, before she would be
In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, I claim that Ed Boone, Christopher's father, was justified in lying to him about the death of his mother. Despite the fact that he lied to him about something critical, he did so with the best intentions.
He wants to achieve his goals and let nothing stand in his way when he does. In addition to Christopher's persistence inside the classroom, he also kept on with the investigation despite what his father said. After Christopher discovers the letters from his mom, he does not quite understand what it means because he believes his mom to be dead. But his father tells him not to look through the letters anymore and puts them in a cupboard in his room. "It was six days before I could go back into Father's room to look in the shirt box in the cupboard ." (102) Even though Christopher's father tells him to leave the letters alone, he directly disobeys him to look for the truth within the letters. With his persistence he builds up enough courage to go into the letters and find out the truth about his mother. Because of this he finds the truth and finds his mother in London. Through Christopher's persistence he disobeys his father to find the letters and find out what he has been hiding from
In order to reasonably deduce who the murderer is we first need to use economic reasoning to understand who it is not. Spearman manages to use the economic concept of game theory to explain why two of the most incentivized characters in the novel and the confessors of the crimes, Ricky LeMans and Vernon Harbley, indeed admit to a crime they never actually commit. Game theory as explained by Eric P. Chiang in CoreMicreconomics is, “the study of strategy and strategic behavior and is used in any situation in which one must predict the actions of others and respond by choosing among more than one strategy, each resulting in a potentially
At the beginning of the book, Christopher had thought that his dad would never hurt anything or anyone. Christopher had thought that his dad was a great person, and that he would never do anything wrong. This turned out to be not true. His father denied killing the dog multiple times, but he did admit to doing the act.“I killed Wellington, Christopher.”(p.120) Wellington is their neighbor’s dog. From this quote...
When Christopher finds Wellington dead on Mrs. Shears’ front lawn, he picks up the dog and strokes it. Christopher is determine to find out who killed Wellington because he likes dogs. Father tells Christopher to leave the dog alone and do not poke into other people’s business. But Christopher has to find out who killed him, thus he decides not to listen to father and go find out and investigate Wellington’s murder. Christopher’s courage began to show when one Saturday, he decides to go around his block and ask questions. Christopher does not like to be around people he does not know and he is scared of some of the people on his block, but he faces his fears--not out of fear, but because he knew it was something he had to do. Christopher mentions that talking to people on his block was brave. He knows what courage is and he knows that he has to be brave. Notice how Ch...
How does the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time explore the concept of truth and lies?
Nothing hurts more than being betrayed by a loved one, Christopher’s father has no trust in Christopher and tells him that his “Mother died 2 years ago”(22) and Christopher thinks his mother died of a heart attack. When Christopher finds out his father lied, he runs away to live with his mother and his father despritally looks for him and while looking for him realizes the importance of telling the truth. When someone betrays one’s trust, they can feel morally violated. Once Christopher finds his mother, she begins to realize how unfit her living conditions are for Christopher and brings him back to his father, bring him “[..] home in Swindon”(207) Christopher feels incredibly hurt and distressed he does not want to see his father. Whether a relationship can be repaired depends entirely on whether trust can or cannot be restored. Christopher’s father works very hard to regain his trust, he tells his son “[..] I don’t know about you, but this...this just hurts too much”, Christopher’s father is dealing with the result of being dishonest with his son and himself.
First, let's examine the facts of this "case." But what, you might wonder, qualifies as a provable fact? For this story, we will assume that any claim made by the narrator that could be backed up by an eye-witness is true. Thus, we know that when Cal enters George's house the night of the murder, George's wife, also in the house, observes them as they drink whiskey. She sees George swell into anger and break two chairs. She also views George as he grabs his shotgun and heads off to Harvey's with Cal. Consequently, in the next few days, she, an eyewitness to the events in her home, goes around, "telling every one that her husband and Cal Long were going to kill someone" (5). Moreover, we know that Harvey Groves is in fact murdered--since his body is found by someone--however, we don't know much about the occurrence of his murder since no outside witness observes the murder--unless, of course, the observer is involved in the murder.
The book begins as a mystery novel with a goal of finding the killer of the neighbor's dog, Wellington. The mystery of the dog is solved mid-way through the book, and the story shifts towards the Boone family. We learn through a series of events that Christopher has been lied to the past two years of his life. Christopher's father told him that his mother had died in the hospital. In reality she moved to London to start a new life because she was unable to handle her demanding child. With this discovery, Christopher's world of absolutes is turned upside-down and his faith in his father is destroyed. Christopher, a child that has never traveled alone going any further than his school, leaves his home in order to travel across the country to find his mother who is living in London.
Schulz present’s in her article that “Making a Murder” attempts to point out that it’s concern over the jury finding with certainty that Steven Avery had committed the murder when there is some evidence that he did not commit the
... believed in the innocence of the young man and convinced the others to view the evidence and examine the true events that occurred. He struggled with the other jurors because he became the deviant one in the group, not willing to follow along with the rest. His reasoning and his need to examine things prevailed because one by one, the jurors started to see his perspective and they voted not guilty. Some jurors were not convinced, no matter how much evidence was there, especially Juror #3. His issues with his son affected his decision-making but in the end, he only examined the evidence and concluded that the young man was not guilty.
...dent by trial that Matthews was the victim (Travis Hayes). A confidence statement signed at the initial procedure would have shown that the eyewitness had the same misgivings about the description of the suspect matching Matthews that his lawyers had during the trial.
How could she, his wife, betray him and kill him with no remorse? The article, “Trial Lawyers Cater to Jurors’ Demands for Visual Evidence,” written by Sylvia Hsieh, stresses the importance of visual evidence. Hsieh writes in a formal tone as she delves into a pool of various example trials used to explain visual evidence, along with specific quotes obtained from well-known lawyers and workers in the industry. This simply states the recurring idea that visual evidence is important.