Analysis Of Mark Haddon's 'Curious Incident'

The Curious Incident. Mark Haddon’s the curious incident of the dog in the night-time is written in first person through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old, Christopher, a high functioning, literal individual whom readers have been known to portray as being an individual scaled on the autistic spectrum. If you appreciate the author’s interpretation of Christopher, as nothing more than a fictional teenage character, it is appropriate to find humour in this novel. The behaviour of the protagonist throughout the novel portrays a high level of self-preservation characteristics, rather than autistic tendencies, which play a substantial role towards the humour portrayed in Haddon’s works.

Mark Haddon himself has highlighted his reservations about this

2017). The book content establishes a different notion of the world, through the erratic actions and thoughts of a fifteen-year-old who does not want to face the difficulties that life delivers, promoted by the inefficient understanding, lack of unity and secrets held by his parents, this creates unpredictable events and extreme subject changes, generating humour. When Mrs Alexander informs Christopher of his mother’s affair with Mr Shears, Christopher seeks clear clarification of the meaning and understanding of the news by asking “Do you mean that they were doing sex?” (Haddon. 60). The reality of this news is not something Christopher wants to accept. His initial reaction is logical and seeks for further information about the situation but when Mrs Alexander confirms the affair and requests Christopher’s silence on the matter he immediately shuts down, goes home and the attention instantly diverts to “The Monty Hall Problem” (Haddon, 62) reflecting again, the need to avoid facing reality and subjects that

The portrayal of Christopher as a fictional character is one of an extreme introvert, with his own view of the world around him based on the necessity of self-preservation installed throughout his childhood and the neglect of proper guidance required to evade his inappropriate behaviour. This causes confusion to the characters he interacts with, and erratic directional adjustments throughout the novel, which in turn instigates amusement to the reader. This wonderful novel does create an amazing ability for the reader to see the world from a new prospective which creates empathy for people around us, an emotion which is sometimes lacking. Haddon creates humour in what could be dire situations that occur on a daily occurrence in society. It is appropriate to recognise the humour that Haddon has brilliantly created in this fictional