“Marginalised Voices – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”;
Marginalised Voices Essay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The book ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time’, published in May 2003 by Mark Haddon, illustrates Christopher Boone, a young boy who faces the challenges of autism in his everyday life. Mark Haddon, the author chose to make Christopher have autism so that he could make readers sympathize more with Christopher over other characters. Christopher having autism also allows Haddon to show the reader the perspective of the story from an autistic person, and make the story revolve around how 'different’ he is. Finally, the reader is able to reach more conclusions about the story on behalf of Christopher’s tendency to inform the reader excessively about his discoveries.
Mark Haddon uses Christopher’s Autism as a source of empathy for the reader.
Chapter 29 in the book is opened with the lines: “I find people confusing.” (Haddon, 19). With this single sentence, Haddon shows the reader that Christopher ultimately has difficulties comprehending external sources of communication such as body language, the tone of voice etc. This is further elaborated with: “The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words.” (Haddon, 19). This passage conveys to the reader that Christopher specifically fails to perceive nonverbal communication. This helps justify the unusual behavior that is exhibited by Christopher in the story, which is evident in excerpts
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like: “I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and rolled forward till I was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. The grass was wet and cold. It was nice.“, and establishes the aforementioned empathy between the reader and Christoper.
The book’s story is impacted greatly by Christopher’s autism. Haddon manages to make the story revolve not only around what happens to Christopher but also how different he is to others. In order to achieve this, Haddon uses the opportunity to include thoughts and actions that reflect Christopher’s Autism/In chapter 3 Christopher states: “I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507” (Haddon, 2) This demonstrates that Christopher has high logic and memory skills, which are both known characteristics of autism. In chapter 151 Christopher additionally states:
And in this formula N stands for the population density. When N = 1 the population is the biggest it can get. And when N = 0 the population is extinct. N new is the population in one year, and N old is the population in the year before. And λ is what is called a constant. When λ, is less than 1, the population gets smaller and smaller and goes extinct. And when λ, is between 1 and 3, the population gets bigger and then it stays stable like this (and these graphs are hypothetical, too) (Haddon, 127)
This passage demonstrates how Haddon expresses Christopher’s logical abilities in order to emphasize the fact that he has autism which gives it more importance in the story in order for readers to understand Christopher’s unusual behavior.
Christopher’s natural tendencies to excessively inform his explorations grant readers additional information to form their interpretations of the story. In Chapter 7, Christopher observes that “Mr. Jeavons smells of soap and wears brown shoes that have approximately 60
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circular holes in each of them.” (Haddon, 5). This demonstrates his excessive descriptions of things around him, although it doesn’t provide context to the main plot. One such passage would be: “I only know 3 people who do little circles instead of dots over the letter i. And one of them is Siobhan, and one of them was Mr. Loxely, who used to teach at the school, and one of them was Mother.” (Haddon, 119). This sentence provides readers with three options to draw a conclusion from: Siobhan, Mr. Loxely, and his Mother. As Christopher’s Mother has remained more of a mystery, the story, up to this point, would most likely progress to a revelation about Christopher’s Mother. This way, Haddon used Christopher’s autism to foreshadow events that happen in the story for the reader.
In the book, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ Haddon successfully creates an empathetic bond between readers and Christopher by making Christopher's vulnerabilities and shortcoming clear to readers. He also manages to define Christopher as a character who, despite facing the challenges of autism, is exceptionally gifted in logic and memory tasks, and finally Haddon has managed to use Christopher’s autism to foreshadow events and revelations throughout the book with Christopher’s Excessive descriptions effectively.
Works Consulted
Stephens, Simon, and Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
N.p.: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016. Print.
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