The Curious Case Of The Dog In The Night-Time Analysis

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The Metaphor Concept
In The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon’s narrator Christopher addresses the concept of the metaphor in order to interpret why he thinks and feels as he does. Haddon brings out Christopher’s comparison of metaphors to lies in order to help the reader understand the basis of Christopher’s viewpoint of truth, love and lies. The concept of the metaphor is addressed in order to show how different Christopher is from other people in his viewpoint of his place in the world around him.
Haddon uses Christopher’s inability to understand metaphors in order to show how confused he is with the subtlety of language. Christopher states: “I think it [a metaphor] should be called a lie because a pig is not like …show more content…

We are made to understand that Christopher believes that “loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble, and looking after them, and telling them the truth, and Father always tells me the truth, which means that he loves me” (Haddon 137). Christopher’s assertion that all metaphors are lies means that he believes that the people who use metaphors in their speech do not love him. Thus, to Christopher, love equals truth and without truth there can not be love.
Haddon uses the truth/lie concept to further shape Christopher personality in the minds of the readers. Christopher recalls a conversation with his teacher: “And she said, "Are you telling the truth, Christopher?" And then I said, "I always tell the truth." And she said, "I know you do, Christopher. But sometimes we get sad about things and we don 't like to tell other people that we are sad about them” ( Haddon 109).
People who are unaffected by mental disability are able to easily relate to others in terms of showing emotion, most people feel that being sad is very personal and should not be shown. Christopher’s teacher asserts that people often conceal our feelings and keep things hidden. On the contrary, Christopher is incapable of relating to others when he feels emotional. He does not know how to show or hide his emotions through language or facial

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