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
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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 …show more content…
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
In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon, English novelist, delivers a murder-mystery of Wellington, Mrs. Shears’ dog through an autistic view. Haddon uses the murder-mystery and other incidents during his lifetime to unwrap specifics of his disorder. He encounters specific situations, such as arriving at the train station, to explain how it takes groaning to calm him down and how he does not allow strangers to lay a hand on him. In his unraveling of his disorder and his quest to solve the murder-mystery, Haddon uses rhetorical devices such as details, metaphors, and imagery to develop his character.
The curious incident of the dog in the night time is about a young boy with asperger's syndrome named Christopher. asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder considered to be on the “high functioning” end of the spectrum. Affected children and adults have difficulty with social interactions and exhibit a restricted range of interests repetitive behaviours. Christopher found a dead black poodle with a pitch fork in it. It made him very upset and he wanted to find out who killed Wellington, so he did some investigating so he could get the killer arrested but in a plot twist Christopher found out it was his father who killed Wellington. Christopher was very scared and angry with his father because he killed Wellington and lied about his mother dying of a heart attack when really she left Christopher and Ed for another man and moved to London. Christopher didn't like lier's. Christopher packed his bags and ran away from his father while he was at work and decided to go live with his mother. Christopher found the letters she had been writing him and the address was on the letters.
Christopher abnormally obsesses over everything in his life. This is due to his severe OCD, which he struggles with throughout the novel. Likewise, Christopher’s OCD is depicted as a reaction to the lack of control over his environment. He copes with situations he cannot control by looking for various details within his life that bring him peace-of-mind him. For instance, before the policemen arrive at the crime scene of the murder of the Poodle, he felt tense and anxious caused by Mrs. Shears’s neurotic behavior in reaction to viewing Christopher peer over her dead dog. Later, when the police arrive to investigate the crime scene, Christopher feels a surge of comfort because the policeman is a representation (in Christopher’s mind) of order. When the police arrived Christopher thought: “Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and
Christopher during the course of the text of the novel learns to disregard other people’s judgments.
Though Christopher is aware of these facts about himself, this no lessens his struggles for self and social acceptance. His self, although different than most, still seeks validation and approval. On the other hand, Christopher seeks a world with people like him, or no one at all. Therefore, he simultaneously attempts to understand others and wishes he did not have to do
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
This shows that Christopher's father was lying to him about his mother being dead and he had told a giant lie and was deceitful to Christopher that made him go through that pain as if he had lost his mother. The next quote happens right after father had confessed he had killed Wellington which filled Christopher with rage and fear from his father's wrong actions. Christopher states while writing in his book,"I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That means he could murder me, because I couldn't trust him even though he had said trust me because he had told a lie about a big thing."(Haddon 122)This quote is important because, Christopher is saying that his father had admitted to killing Wellington the dog he had a connection with. Influenced Christopher to run away from home away from his father. In the end this all leads
There are many novels that have been written where the author may be very mendacious and trick his/her readers with lies or different ideas that could have happened but nobody knows. In the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, The author portrays himself as the narrator Christopher Boone who is an autistic 15 year-old trying to figure out who killed a neighbor’s dog. When a reader thinks an autistic 15 year-old, they already have an image in their mind and some know exactly how they are supposed to act and speak, so this essay is going to cover an evaluation of how accurate the author is, the narrator is, and also the narrator’s father.
is a murderer. When this occurs, Christopher begins to feel afraid, the only emotion he is capable of experiencing.
Also, because Christopher tells the story, Haddon has successfully pointed out the gap between Christopher 's view and the reader 's view when Christopher says, "I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn 't trust him, even though he had said "Trust me," because he had told a lie about a big thing" (55). It 's very clear to us that Christopher 's father won 't do anything that hurt him because we understand that his father loves him. But to Christopher, it 's a different story. He applies the logic in response to the problem because to him, "logic can help you work out the right answer" (30). The readers apprehend the reason his father has to lie to him, but Christopher doesn 't. Because of this, Christopher 's characteristics and his lack of understanding other 's emotional is
Readers first discover Christopher’s lack of understanding at the beginning of the novel, when he is told by his father to “stay out of other people’s business.” Christopher then states, “I don’t know what father means when he says, ‘stay out of other people’s business’ because I do not know what he means by ‘other people’s business’
...though Christopher functions more like a computer than a human, but he possesses the ability to think independently, which over all else represents a human characteristic. No machine can operate efficiently without being instructed and following exact orders. Christopher also needs to be told exactly what to do because the vagueness of common phrases is confusing to him, but knows that people break rules and also knows that he can make decisions for himself. On his journey to find his mother, Christopher makes the decision to break away from all of his rules in order to find her. He is able to go to London against almost all odds, and does so by stepping out of his comfort zone and into a world of uncertainty. Even though he uses computer-like thinking to come to the conclusion of going to his mother, it is his underlying human qualities that make the trip possible.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time chronicles of Christopher Boone of Swindon, England. The book is written by Mark Haddon, who formerly worked with autistic individuals, describes the world through the eyes of Christopher, who is self-proclaimed “special needs”. The novel never explicitly says what Christopher’s diagnosis is, but from the text it is apparent that he would fall on the higher functioning end of the Autism Spectrum.
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.
The biggest reconnection Christopher encounters is with his mother. It begins when he finds a series of letters addressed to him in his father’s closet. Upon reading the letters, he makes the shocking discovery that his mother is alive, not dead, as his father previously tells him. Later, in trying to explain why he hides the truth, his father confesses he kills Wellington. As Christopher comes to these revelations, he immediately decides, “‘I had to go to London to live with Mother.’” (Haddon 131). This is a very powerful example of adapting. Christopher decides on the spot to go live with his mom despite not seeing her for years. The attitude of ‘sudden decisions’ without thinking long and hard about the full outcome is uncommon for him, and yet he comes to this solution in almost no time at all. Also, the wording of the sentence is very specific. He uses the word 'had' instead of 'can', which proves the idea is already set in his mind. As a result, this proves he already trusts his mother and is willing to adjust to go to her. Besides Christopher, his mother also expresses a likewise characteristic of adaptation to renew