Conflict Theory and Poverty

Christopher Overcoming his Challenges The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime is a novel written by Mark Haddon. It is a murder mystery novel narrated by the main character 15 year old Christopher Boone. The plot follows Christopher’s journey of finding out who killed his neighbor’s poodle, Wellington. Although Christopher is never directly labelled, he has “Asperger Syndrome which is a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Due to having Asperger Syndrome, Christopher has challenges in his everyday life such as taking the bus to school and talking to his neighbours. Christopher has difficulty with his communication skills, social interaction, being touched, and behavioural issues, which according to Winter are defining features of Asperger Syndrome. Christopher is a literal person who uses his extremely logical thinking and mathematical brilliance to cope with the chaos and unpredictability of everyday life. Christopher’s use of logic and math demonstrates that people with Asperger's can function within society. Christopher is a unique and intelligent boy, but there are many things in his life that he does not comprehend. In chapter 3, Christopher describes how he knows all the countries in the world along with their capitals, and every prime number up to 7057 but cannot decipher facial expressions (2) or metaphors, which he sees as lies (15). In chapter 19 Christopher compares prime numbers to life, saying that “prime numbers and life are logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them” (12). This is a significant aspect of the approach Christopher takes to understand life through mathematics and logic. Christopher lacks the ability to empathize or understand other’s emotions. This is evident when Ed Boone, Christopher’s father, reveals that he lied about Christopher’s mother’s death (119). Christopher does not understand the emotional turmoil that his father is going through, but