Analysis Of Curious Incident Of The Dog And The Night-Time

Summary
The Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night-Time is a mystery novel written by a British writer, Mark Haddon. The novel is narrated by a 15 year old boy named Christopher John Francis Boone who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties” [73.1]. The book took place in 1998 in the small town of Swindon, England. One night, Christopher discovered the dead body of his neighbor’s dog, Willington, which lead to a misunderstanding between him and his neighbor.
Christopher, a fan of detectives and also the Sherlock Holmes stories, decides to start detecting and investigating to try to solve the mystery of the dead dog, even despite the fact that his father told him not to do so. Along his way, Christopher discovers much more than his goal—both about himself and even things that he has never expected or thought of before.

Retell
What is the main idea (theme) of the story? Provide specific examples from the text to prove this theme.
In this novel, I think that the main themes are the struggle for independence, lies and deceits, and isolation.
The struggle for independence: Christopher has a goal alike to many teenagers his age: to become an independent individual and find his role in the world. Unfortunately, because of his condition, it is difficult for him to achieve that goal. He has trouble understanding people, dealing with new environments and things and unable to decide and make a choice when he is overloaded to new information which makes it hard for himself to go somewhere on his own. He tends to curl into a ball, blocking out the whole world around him when he feels frightened or overwhelmed. However, Christopher is still alike to a typical teenager, striving for independence ...

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...rned out.” [157. 25] Christopher’s mother bluntly states that she has not been a good mother, and maybe if Christopher was different, meaning if Christopher did not have the behavioural problem that she had to cope with, she could’ve done a better job than what she has done. This shows the reader clearly that his mother was not a patient individual, and she has difficulty coping with Christopher's condition. I think that Christopher’s mother is a very strong-willed and independent individual, evident from the 43 letters she has written over the past 2 years, despite getting no response from Christopher. Even though her mother is a very strong-willed and independent person, she still finds taking care of Christopher difficult because of his needs and behaviour. She loves Christopher a lot, yet she isn't very confident with her own ability to take care of Christopher.