Mark Haddon's Night-Time

Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-Time, illustrates how different character’s react in adversities they face. The novel focus’s on an autistic 15 year old, who is intrigued in finding out who kills his neighbour’s dog, which results in him discovering about mother’s ‘death’. Throughout the text Haddon explores different characters responses to a range of challenges and situations that arise. Haddon’s use of characterisation, themes and symbols, allow the reader to identify their reaction to the difference challenges present in the novel.

When coping with change, different characters react in similar manners, as they feel the need to isolate themselves from others surrounding them. Judy Boone, Christopher’s mother,

When Christopher finds out that his mother is alive his initial reaction is confusion, before he continue to be “sick all over the bed”. When his father exposes the full truth that associates with his mother and that he had killed Wellington, Christopher “[wonders] what he [will] do next”. However, Christopher is more so shocked at the truth about Wellington’s death then about his mother being alive, that he proceeds to be silent and not “say anything” to his father for the rest of the night. Christopher now views his father as “a murderer”, which demonstrates how strong Haddon’s symbol of dogs are in the novel. Christopher’s reaction is to isolate himself from his father and to run away to be with his mother in order to feel safe. It is evident that Christopher faces new challenges due to the author’s change in the style of writing. Haddon increases the length of sentences to empathise Christopher’s fear and the new experiences he is facing. He also uses anaphora by repeating the word “and” to show that Christopher is at state if panic with the challenges that are upon him. Hadden uses the symbol of mathematics to represent Christopher’s mechanism of creating logic when he faces uncomfortable situations. He “[likes] math because it [is] safe” and when he is panicking he “[does] a maths problem to make [his] head clearer”. Haddon’s use of this symbol allows the reader to see that when Christopher faces challenging situations he tries to create logic out of them by using maths. Christopher’s actions are not always the most appropriate and cause conflict for him, however, when he faces adversity he tries to make what he sees as logical