Christopher Boone

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Within his novel, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’, Mark Haddon employs a range of literary techniques which allow the audience to effectively grasp an understanding of the unique mental processes of the main protagonist, Christopher Boone. The text describes the story of a fifteen-year-old autistic boy, journaling his passage of discovery, as he investigates the murder of his neighbour’s dog. The structure of the novel mirrors Christopher’s approach to the world, which is based on logic, deduction, truth, and objectivity. While the use of first person narrative, diagrams and images, allows an insight into the thought processes and understandings he experiences. Christopher does not view himself as disabled, but rather, he …show more content…
Christopher is unable to comprehend what is not said in literal, logical terms, hence the reader is often required to supply what he, as the narrator, cannot. In example, as Christopher discovers the letter’s his mother had been sending him, realising she has, in fact, not passed, he is unable to grasp why his father would keep this from him, although it is blatant to the audience. “I couldn’t trust him, even though he had said, ‘Trust me,’ because he had told a lie about a big thing” (p. 153). Although Christopher will never understand the farcical drama of parental discord he witnesses, the audience has been provided with sufficient evidence to justify his father’s behaviour, which is essentially motivated by his cowardice traits and protective nature. This effect would have not been successfully maintained if a different perspective, such as: the third person, had been utilised. His inability to communicate with others effectively is also manifested via the longwinded, grammatically incorrect statements presented throughout his writing. “Also I don’t know what father means when he says ‘Stay out of other people’s business’ because I do not know what he means by ‘other people’s business’ because I do lots of things with other people, at school and in the shop and on the bus, and his …show more content…
Each chapter conforms to a small number of pages – typically between one and five – this is primarily a representation of his attentiveness. Christopher’s autism often effects his ability to sustain thought throughout a single moment, and consequently diminishing his capacity to write eloquently in regards to the specific occasion, hence why each chapter is only consistent of minimal detail. Every other chapter, contains what could be considered a digression from the plot, however, they provide a stern insight into Christopher’s mentality. In example, chapter 11 discusses the misunderstanding that concluded with Christopher hitting a police man, while the following chapter – chapter 13, – discussed the essence of jokes and Christopher’s inability to tell or interpret them. These digressions exemplify, once again, Christopher’s inability to remain focused on a single moment, his mind often wanders, trailing thoughts completely irrelevant to the situation. In addition, the chapters are each marked with increasing prime numbers, establishing an accurate uniqueness to his persona. “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them” (p. 15). This statement can be deemed an accurate
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