Pannu 1
Dilpreet Pannu
ENG 1D0-N
Mrs. Crupi
January 10th , 2013 Autism is neurological disorder which does not allow the person to use daily problem solving skills in their everyday lives. However, a person without problem solving skills will struggle with regular day to day problems. The problems could involve a member of society who might not know that person is autistic. Autistic humans cannot go shopping or to any public places on their own because observers will have an strange perception of the person. Christopher, from the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, runs away or hides from his problems instead of facing them. Throughout the story, Christopher either runs away or hides from his problems in many situations which include facing his father, the policeman and Mrs. Alexander. First of all , Christopher's first approach to deal with his father killing Wellington is to run away from home . He does not have a plan the first day so he hides behind the shed until he makes a plan. The next day he makes a plan by listing all of the possible people he could go and live with. He narrows his options down and gets one option remaining . The one option remaining is to go and live with his mother. "...I did this by thinking of all the things I could do and deciding whether they were the right decision or not"( Haddon, 129). This quotation from the novel shows how Christopher uses his problem solving skills to narrow his options down.
Pannu 2
The next step Christopher takes in this situation is to walk to his school. For instance, Christopher thinks that he could get directions to the train station by asking Siobhan. ".... I started walking toward the school because that was the direction I knew, and when I got to the school I could ask Siobhan where the train station was"(Haddon, 136). In this phrase, Christopher begins walking to his school and will ask Siobhan where the train station is. Once Christopher reaches his school, he sees his father's van parked in the parking lot. Christopher does not want to see his dad so he decides to find the train station by himself. Christopher's final step is asking a lady walking along the street and decides to ask her the directions to the train station. ".......Which meant I had to go to the train station and go to London to live with my mother" ( Haddon, 131). In this phrase, Christopher decides to go to the train station on his own. He gets directions to the train station from the lady. Christopher uses his problem solving skills to find the train station using the directions the lady gives. Christopher arrives at the train station and boards a train by using his problem solving skills wisely and soon meets an officer. Secondly, Christopher hides from the police officer when he finds out that the police officer is going to take him home. The police officer catches Christopher as soon he boards the train which interferes with Christopher's plan. While the two are sitting in the train, Christopher needs to go to the bathroom badly but he thinks that there are no bathrooms on a train. He thinks that trains do not have bathrooms because train rides are very bumpy. Christopher tries to hold it in but he wets his pants. The police officer gives Christopher permission to go to the bathroom since he has to go badly. ".... Where is the bathroom on the train..."( Haddon, 162). In this quotation , Christopher is asking the police officer where the bathroom is. Christopher finds a shelf near the bathroom which reminds him of his cupboard.
Pannu 3
Christopher hides in the cupboard whenever he is annoyed. Christopher climbs into the middle shelf. His idea is to hide from the police officer so that he does not take him home."... So I climbed onto the middle shelf and pulled one of the suitcases so that it was shut" (Haddon,163). In this phrase, Christopher climbs up to the middle shelf and uses a suitcase like the door of his cupboard. He uses the
