Incredibly Close, And The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night By

Jonathan Saffran Foer in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Mark Haddon in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time explore the varying ways in which individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder may perceive the world. Although Safran Foer focuses on themes of national tragedy and grief from the September 11 terrorist attacks and Mark Haddon focuses on becoming independent, the protagonists face similar struggles, which arise from their different view of the world. The protagonists experience difficulties to make friends, understand how their actions affect others and cope with painful emotions, which conveys that to perceive the world differently impacts a persons ability to socialise, express themselves, have empathy for others and control
Both authors characterise their protagonists with autistic traits, which impact how they socialise, to explore the idea that Autistic children struggle with communicating and relating to others. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Safran Foer characterises Oscar as lacking simple social skills through his interrogating conversation with Gerald where he speaks whatever thought come to his mind, such as that ‘if limousine where extremely long they wouldn’t need drivers’. This remark demonstrates how Oscar’s struggles to self edit or consider how he may confuse or offend other people, something that Christopher is well aware of and the reason being he avoids social interactions and fears strangers. When a police officer questions Christopher he feels like the questions are ‘stacking up in (his) my head like loaves in the factory’ a metaphor, which Haddon uses to symbolise how Christopher became is easily overwhelmed by social interaction in this case he struggles to understand the questions or processing respond acceptably. Another gap in Christopher’s understanding,