Friday, October 15, 2010

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, is a story written from the first-person perspective of Christopher John Francis Boone, a fifteen year old boy with Aspergers Syndrome living in Swindon, Wiltshire with his father. He knows all the countries of the world and their capitols and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. He is obsessed with maths, science, and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. Routine, order, and predictability shelter him from the outside world. But Christopher's carefully constructed universe falls apart when he finds his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled by a garden fork, and is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, but the investigation leads him down some unexpexted paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the closure of his parents' mariage.
Discussion Questions:
1. Christopher's father confesses to killing Wellington in a moment of rage at Mrs. Shears, and swears to Christopher that he will not lie to him ever again. Christopher thinks, "I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because i couldn't trust him, even though he had said 'trust me,' because he told a lie about a big thing," (122). Why is Christopher's world shattered by this realization? Is it likely that he will ever learn to trust him again?
2. In this novel, some scenes seem comical. Which scenes? And why are they funny? Are these same situations sad, or frustrating?

1 comment:

Kyle N.1-2 said...

I wouldn't trust the father either. If he killed the dog, or Wellington, and allows his own SON to be blamed for it, he does not show much care for Christopher. And if he and Chris's mom seperate, there is conflict between them, meaning either the father did something to the mother (showing more untrustworthiness), the mother did something to the father (unexplained here), or they just can't work out their problems (shows father's unability to love and help his wife, another close family member). The father does not seem like a trustworthy person, but since Christopher has no social skills, he might not realize this. I'm undecided.