In the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon introduces Christopher Boone. A 15 year old boy who discovers his neighbors, Mrs. Shear’s dead dog in his backyard. In this paper I will explore the reasons why this is actually a murder-mystery novel, why Christopher would be considered autistic, analyze some of the major characters in the novel and how they relate to the themes of the novel, and explain my take of the ending.
Christopher at the start of the novel explains that this is a murder mystery novel, one which he is writing. Even though most would argue that it is not. The mystery that Christopher is trying to solve is the murder of a dog and not a human. As an audience we also have to keep in mind that the intended audience is for children and young adults. The author obviously had to keep things for young audiences. We also see this incident when Christopher keeps repeating and asking if his dad is going to jail. This shows how innocent he really is since he is so young. It also makes it a mystery because we eventually the mystery is solved, we do find out who killed Wellington and why.
Christopher is definitely on the spectrum of being autistic. Autism is described as “a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other …show more content…
He is a very straight forward speaker. He does not use sarcasm, metaphors, or anything like that. He again likes everything to be stated clearly and without lies. He is the type of person most people would get frustrated with because they take everything in a literal sense. For example if I knew Christopher and I said “Wow there’s a million stars in the sky,” his response would most likely be “There is a lot more than a million stars in the sky.” Maybe this type of conversation would be okay once, but after a while I would get tired of it and honestly get
Christopher at the start of the novel explains that this is a murder mystery novel, one which he is writing. Even though most would argue that it is not. The mystery that Christopher is trying to solve is the murder of a dog and not a human. As an audience we also have to keep in mind that the intended audience is for children and young adults. The author obviously had to keep things for young audiences. We also see this incident when Christopher keeps repeating and asking if his dad is going to jail. This shows how innocent he really is since he is so young. It also makes it a mystery because we eventually the mystery is solved, we do find out who killed Wellington and why.
Christopher is definitely on the spectrum of being autistic. Autism is described as “a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other …show more content…
He is a very straight forward speaker. He does not use sarcasm, metaphors, or anything like that. He again likes everything to be stated clearly and without lies. He is the type of person most people would get frustrated with because they take everything in a literal sense. For example if I knew Christopher and I said “Wow there’s a million stars in the sky,” his response would most likely be “There is a lot more than a million stars in the sky.” Maybe this type of conversation would be okay once, but after a while I would get tired of it and honestly get