The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Summary

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, the third novel of Mark Haddon, tells the story of Christopher, an autistic teenager who decides to find out who killed his neighbor’s dog with a pitchfork. The investigation of Christopher soon turns into a journey into the recent history of his family and a difficult initiation into the world of so-called "normal", with lots of up and downs while wandering through London. The outline of the story is simple, traditional at best, but solved in a clever game of variations.
The author is good to describe this special little boy’s mind- his idiosyncrasies, his love for mathematics, his expression and communication difficulties, his language. It is not just an amusement, although at certain times, …show more content…
Initially his research focuses on the sad end of the dog Wellington, but soon begins to shed light on a mystery that touches him closely: the death of his mother. During his research he discovers in fact some recent letters from the woman, who was believed dead, and reconstructs complicated relationship tangles between his parents and their neighbors. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has the advantage of gently treat a difficult subject like mental handicap. The style, mild and intriguing, it is enlivened by illustrations that alternate the written text and the conversational tone of the story, that was born from the voice of the protagonist himself, in an intention to rebuild, step by step, his discovery journey. The result is a coming of age kind of story.
Some authors, through books or fictional narrative, bring awareness to the readers on a specific topic: from war to health, from economics to religion. There are many books that deal with psychological issues, therefore introducing the theme in a softly way, touching the strings of …show more content…
People with this syndrome are characterized by a persistent impairment in social interaction, interests and activities. Unlike autism, however, does not experience significant delays in language development or cognitive development.
The symptoms of this syndrome are described in a very creative and interesting by the author. Below it is listed the main symptoms the author offers as hints to the reader:
Limited social relationships: failure to demonstrate empathy. Christopher experiences difficulties in basic aspects of social interaction, which may include failure to develop friendships, share interests with others, a lack of social or emotional reciprocity and a reduced use of non-verbal language. The author, through the main character, shows these difficulties explicitly saying that, even though his teacher taught him to associate emotions to facial expressions, he still has difficulty in identifying real people’s faces, therefore making him take out a smile chart, to compare those expressions with the real