Analysis of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time Essay

Analyse ideas presented in the listening passage through linking them to concepts you have studied in your prescribed text. You will need to support your analysis with discussion of quotes and techniques from your prescribed text.

Christopher Boone, the fifteen year old protagonist of Mark Haddons contemporary novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Curious Incident) finds the world a confusing place. His obsession with the truth, logic and facts is indicative of his need to impose order on this challenging world so that he can cope within it. His search for the truth of Wellingtons death, leads him to revelations which undermine many of his sureties and throw his world into chaos. However its his reaction to these revelations which also enables him to restore order in his life.

Though he seems unsuitable narrating a novel, Haddon carefully constructs an authorial voice, thus demonstrating symptoms of his behavioural problems, Aspergers syndrome. This is a syndrome that enables him to see the world only through his limited perspective, which is closed, frightened and disorientated - which results in his fear of, and inability to understand the perplexing world of people's emotions. His description of events can be somewhat unreliable as he is unable to see the real truths that lie before him. As he narrates, readers are confronted with his peculiarities - whether it is not liking to be touched, his fear of germs, strangers and crowds to his inability to eat foods with particular colours. However, through Christopher's authorial voice, his description of events in his life, and in particular, his description of his oddities those seem completely 'normal' to him, make him an interesting and fascinating narrator. As he can be proven to be an unreliable narrator as he is incapable of lying (and understanding lies) and this limits his ability to perceive the full reality of the world, thus providing him with a strange combination of credibility and unbelievability. Again, this is what makes him a wonderful narrator - at times readers can mistrust his interpretation of such events, or they can believe him.