Analysis Of Mark Haddon's Book 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time'

In Mark Haddon’s book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher, the main character, is a 15 year old boy who has autism. Dealing with this condition by itself is very difficult, but there are more events that happen over the course of this book that show the evolution of Christopher as he grows from someone who relies on his dad to do almost everything for him to a person who is able to go to London, find his mom, and become more in touch with the concept of emotions. When most people are 15 they are in the middle of a slow transition from kid to adult. The key word here is slow, as it takes most people several years to go from fully dependent on their parents to being more independent. In Christopher’s case he does this …show more content…
This is the first time that he has been out anywhere besides school or the shop by his house on his own. This is kicked off by him finding the letters that his mom had been writing to him that his dad had been hiding. This is the first time that he begins to understand that the world works differently that how he thinks it does and that him leaving everything up to either random chance or math doesn’t work in the real world. This is made obvious through this quote: “I tried really hard to think if there was any other explanation but I couldn’t think of one. And then I couldn’t think of anything at all because my brain wasn’t working properly.”(pg. 112) After this event his dad tells him the truth about everything and Christopher decides that he is going to go live with his mom in London. He then goes and finds his way to his mom’s house, but along the way there are many incidents where he has to overcome what he would normally do and instead do what is completely foreign to him. Some of them are minor and he is able to overcome them with relative ease, like finding the train station in Swindon. But others are considerably larger like when he is at the underground station in London. In this case he is not able to overcome this using math or logic like he was when he found the train station in Swindon. At first he is unable to think or do anything, which he describes in this …show more content…
I say this is the end of his journey because it is a very intense emotional situation that even people who have no mental problems would have a hard time dealing with. When he first gets to his mom’s house in London he thinks that he has finally gotten away from his father and that all of his problems have gone away. Then the same night that Christopher got there his dad shows up and demands to see him, and wants for Christopher to go back to Swindon with him. But Christopher wants nothing to do with him and this is demonstrated when he says “And then he held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan so that I could touch his fingers, but I didn’t because I was frightened.”(pg. 197) After this interaction he talks to his mom and they go back to Swindon so that he can take his A-levels. This means that he will be seeing his dad more and he will have to eventually address the situation going on with his parents. This eventually happens about two weeks after Christopher gets back to Swindon. Mr. Boone ends up giving Christopher a puppy to show that what happened with Wellington won’t happen again, then Mr. Boone says “Christopher, I would never, ever do anything to hurt you.”(pg. 219) Christopher believes this because he accepts the dog and is okay with the fact that the dog is staying at his dad’s house. After all of this there could still be an argument that