The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Personal challenges can be conveyed from different perspectives. These perspectives, through a text’s distinctive qualities and characteristics affect those responding to it, and more importantly, shape meaning. This is evident through Mark Haddon’s novel, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’. Haddon explores the struggles the protagonist faces trying to gain independence within his novel. Haddon uses first person narration to build the characterisation within the novel. This use of first person narration by “Christopher John Francis Boone” allows the responder to develop understanding of the protagonist. The development of characterisation implies that Christopher suffers with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and the struggles he faces trying to gain independence. Haddon portrays this though the sentence structure in the novel. The use of both truncated and elongated sentences is a device that Haddon uses to further reinforce the implication the Christopher has a disability through the exploration of his psychological landscape, and portraying his though process and matter-of-fact way of thinking. “I think I would make a good astronaut”. Haddon makes these implications early in the novel, providing a basis for the responder’s perception of the novel and Christopher. Haddon gives insight into Christopher and his world by highlighting Christopher’s craving and struggle to become independent and find his role in the world. Haddon uses pictograms to emphasise Christopher’s struggle to relate to others. This struggle to relate to people reinforces the implied ASD that Christopher struggles with. This struggle prevents Christopher form being as independent as he would like because of Christopher’s difficulty in understanding and displaying emotions. Christopher’s difficulty in displaying emotions is evident though Christopher’s coping with the loss of his mother. The murder of Wellington that opens the novel prompts Christopher to reflect on the