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. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...mes their fears at their own time. Aristotle’s point is not when to overcome fears, its how to overcome them. Christopher shows various acts of courage, but at his own different time and in his own state of mind. His zealous attitude about Wellington’s murder, causes him to find out things about his family as well as himself. Christopher realizes his own courage and strengths after his journey is over. He realizes that he can do anything he sets his mind to. Aristotle explains overcoming a fear takes real courage and caution. Although, Oak Park is a nice city, there are still horrible people out there. Being cautious of your surroundings but also having the courage to do anything is the key to success when living in Oak Park. The big picture is everything happens for a reason. People never know how strong they have to be, until being strong is the only option.
A characters courage is not measured by how an action will be accepted by others, but by how their actions stay true to themselves even in the face of a pressured surrounding. Colin McDougall’s The Firing Squad a story about a young soldiers attempt at redemption and George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant an essay about Orwell’s days in a British colony where he was called to handle the situation with an aggressive elephant are two pieces of literature that demonstrate the effects of courage. Courage takes many forms and in these two great pieces of literature it can be measured by looking at the characters and how they use courage and lack of courage as a driving factor in different ways throughout their story’s.
Throughout our lives we encounter dilemmas which help us learn the real meaning of courage, which differs with every person. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. This could be interpreted that courage isn't committing an act of temerity without a reason, however, it is facing your fears to accomplish something which is more important than fear itself. Throughout the book B for Buster by Iain Lawrence, the main character of the novel learns the real meaning of courage through his acts of temerity in order to achieve something which is important to him. This novel takes place during World War II, when an underage sixteen year old signs up to become a crewman in the Halifax bombing of Nazi Germany. Although he is young, Kak makes it through his missions through his courage and determination to accomplish his dream and his love for flying. Lawrence uses characterization and many examples from the novel to show the true meaning of courage.
Feelings are the most significant part of human’s creature, but what if it comes to the goal that one’s life is based on? Would it still be that important? In the article, “Dog Lab”, Claire McCarthy discusses her own experiences as a medical student at Harvard school. McCarthy was born in 1963. She did her residency at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and she is now working as a pediatrician at the Martha Eliot Health Center in the Jamaica Plains. During college, she used to keep a journal with her that provided the outline of her writings which she referred to for her books such as Learning How the Heart Beats: The making of a Pediatrician and Everyone's Children : A Pediatrician's Story of an Inner City Practice. In addition to McCarthy being
“…people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want" (79). Both protagonist learned about the dangers of fear through the tribulations of their journey. Although life may constantly though curveballs our way, it is important to learn how to take risks. One must to have the audacity to continue on. Odysseus, a courageous Greek hero, would not have made it very far if he was apprehensive of taking risks. Instead, he sought
Mark Twain best described courage when he said that, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear” (Twain). Both in The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and Watership Down by Richard Adams, the authors deal with the topic of courage and each share a similar view on it as this quote. Indeed, both authors suggest that courage is not accumulated simply by acts of heroism, but rather by overcoming fears and speaking one’s mind as well. These books are very similar in the way that bravery is displayed through the characters in an uncommon way. Firstly, an example of bravery
Humans are never perfect, and their emotions often conflict with their logic. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator receives a physically disabled brother, Doodle, thus trains Doodle physically so that he could live a normal life. Throughout the story, the narrator’s actions and thoughts reveals his true personalities to the audience as he slowly narrates the story of himself and his scarlet ibis, Doodle, whose existence he dreaded. In the story written by James Hurst, pride, love, and cruelty, these conflicting character traits all exists in Doodle’s brother. And the most severe of all, pride.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is told through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy named Christopher Boone. Christopher has a highly-functioning form of autism which allows him to understand complex mathematical problems, but also leaves him unable to comprehend many simple human emotions. His inability to understand metaphors, distinguish emotions, and his lack of imagination makes it possible to consider Christopher as functioning like a computer rather than functioning as a human being. Throughout the story, Christopher is faced with many challenges which he conquers using the stable and never changing system of mathematics. All of these factors suggest that Christopher does, in fact, function like a computer, but it is apparent early in the story that Christopher, regardless of anything else, is capable of independent thought which separates him from the programmed, dependent world of computers.
The vast majority of heroes in novels display courage frequently, making it a characteristic praised by many. Once a character demonstrates their cowardly nature, he becomes looked down upon. Those unlucky enough can be named weak, wimpy, chicken, and so forth; however many do not understand that both courage and timidness are intertwined. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, the author indicates that courage can be driven by both fear and cowardice.
Whilst the concept of autism and what it means to be autistic is still widely unrecognised by many, Mark Haddon’s use of conventions of prose fiction and language amplifies the distinctive qualities of the text. Haddon exemplifies key themes such as the struggle to become independent, the nature of difference and the disorder of life through the strategic placement of literary devices.
You can show courage in many different ways. Courage means when you are brave and even though your scared you still do it. In this case Mr.Frank and Peter do. Mr. frank shows it by being brave enough to go downstairs and risk getting caught just to catch the burglar. On the in the same way peter shows courage to. Peter shows courage because he goes out of the Annex to get things and he always risks getting caught to.
In the short story “Dog,” Russo paints the picture of a strong willed boy who is amongst parents who don’t understand what the real problem which is his lack of parents attention and bad parenting when dealing with his extreme obsessions over getting a dog.
The plot of the story, “Ride the Dark Horse”, was very interesting. In the beginning, the character didn’t think that he should do anything so that he wouldn’t have to “face facts”. However, one day he went on a fishing trip with his father. On the trip he met a boy, Jean Paul, whose father offered him a job picking up logs from a river. As they were collecting the wood, Jean Paul decided to go fishing. Jean Paul then cast his line when it accidentally got caught in a tree. The lure hooked onto his face and sliced at his chest, hurting him severely. The other boy then pulled Jean Paul into his canoe and paddled them all the way to the doctor, despite the boy’s original intention to avoid doing anything. A thought-provoking storyline transpired throughout the text.
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.
The curious incident of the dog in the night time was narrated in first person by Christopher Boone however If it was narrated in third person the audience would not have understood the way Christopher was feeling. Communication, Social Interactions, Relationship’s and Christopher’s Autism spectrum disorder were some of the main areas expressed in the novel.
Love and trust come to mind when thinking upon our relationships with one another. There are many types of these bonds whether it be between mother and child or owner and pet. The story of “A Dark Brown Dog”, is one take on how some relationships can leave us with a dark place in our heart.