The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time Essay
1421 Words6 Pages
English Paper
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the main characters, Atticus, says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 32). This thought can be applied in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. This book is narrated by autistic boy named Christopher. This unique first-person point of view narration paints a clearer picture of Christopher. The use of first-person narration in this novel draws the reader into Christopher’s world since the reader better comprehends how he thinks, how intelligent he is, his emotions, how he behaves and why he behaves that way, and the reader gains…show more content… Christopher tells the reader that he likes dogs more than humans because they only have four emotions and he is easily able to identify how a dog is feeling. Whereas he is not able to identify the emotions of humans because there are too many and he gets confused about what they are trying to convey. This idea of Christopher being more comfortable around animals or objects than humans is expressed throughout the novel. For example, he seemingly likes his rat Toby more than anything else. He is also very moved by the death of Wellington and goes on a quest to find out who killed him. He also sometimes can only care about himself and not see the world around him. An example of this is when he wants to take his A Level Maths Exam, but his mother can’t take him there. He gets very angry and starts screaming. He doesn’t realize what his mother is going through, the only fact that he can comprehend is that he will not be able to take the exam. Christopher also has dreams in which he is the only person in the world. These dreams show his want for independence and they also show that sometimes he needs space from the outside world. If this novel was not narrated in the first-person the reader would never know Christopher’s