The curious incident of the dog in the night time

Author: Mark haddon

text type: novel

date read: april

The curious incident of the dog in the night is a story about a 15 year old boy named Christopher, who doesn’t understand human beings. When Christopher finds out his dog “Wellington” was killed with a garden fork. He decides to track down the killer, and write a murder mystery about it.

The character i found most interesting was Christopher, because we have the same way of learning. Christopher learns by visual images, because of this memory. Because of this problem, Christopher will remember what his dead dog looked like for the rest of his life. Christopher didn’t understand human beings, so every time he didn’t understand what someone was saying, he would take out a piece of paper, that had draw faces. To help him understand what people were saying, based on how they were feeling. Christopher liked dogs, he always knew what a dog was thinking, based on their facial expressions. when Mrs Shears sees Wellington, she starts screaming, ” what in fucks name have you done to my dog” . Christopher gets scared as he doesn’t understand why she’s screaming. ” I don’t like people shouting at me”, “it makes me scared that they are gonna hit me or touch me”. This tells the reader that Christopher might have anxiety disorder or a phobia of people touching him, also know as “Haphephobia”. ” I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes, and rolled towards till I was hunched up, with my forehead pressed into the grass”.

Messages I took away from the text was that Christopher and I are the similar, with my dyslexia, and his photographic memory, they both go hand in hand. Because people with dyslexia learn better with photographs as they struggle with remembering words. Another message that I took away from the text is that Christopher and I struggle with anxiety, So we both know what its like to have anxiety. And what you have to go through when you have anxiety. For me, anxiety has been something that I struggle with, the worse parts of having is that it can affect your school life. I find it really hard to speak in front of the class, or reading out loud. Because i’m afraid of messing up, or people judging me, in society we are judged for when we make mistakes, and people are scared to be brave and confident because of it. Back when my parents were kids anxiety wasn’t a common thing to have. But the new generation almost everyone at some stage of their life, has anxiety over something. Because of the way we live our lives, compared to how our parents grew up. This is because they didn’t grow up with smartphones, which nowadays can be why most people have anxiety. Because they use their phone too much, and they don’t know how to communicate properly with someone. They would rather text someone then talk to them face to face. There are certain types of anxiety disorders, like general anxiety, social anxiety, certain phobias, and panic disorders. I personally struggle with a panic disorder because of the pressure being put on me and stressing out about it, it has affected my school life drastically. Christopher also had a fear of people touching him, ” I didn’t like him touching me”, Christopher’s reaction to the policeman touching him was to hit him. “This is when I hit him”, to let him know that he didn’t like people touching him.

Challenges that Christopher had to deal with was his photographic memory, and not being able to understand humans. ” I find people confusing”, he also doesn’t like being under pressure, or being put on the stop. When the police man was asking Christopher questions, about what happened and “what did you see”. He kept asking the same questions, Christopher buckled under pressure “they were stacking up in my head like loafs of bread in a factory”. This tells the reader that he doesn’t like to be put under pressure, I could personally relate to this as I hate when people keep asking me the same questions over and over again. It feels like your head is gonna burst, from all the pressure that’s put on you.

The title of the text is appropriate because, It tells the reader what the story is about. “Who murder Christopher’s dog in the night time”, the title of the story catches the attention of the readers. Mark Haddon uses this title because the story is based on a dog that was murdered.

I would recommend this story for people like Christopher that have a photographic memory, or people who struggle with a mental disorder like dyslexia. People that are mental challenged can relate to Christopher, and can understand what its like to only learn by photographic images. And find it hard to understand human beings. like people with dyslexia, they struggle to understand humans when they speak, But they can tell what a person is feeling based on their facial expression. kids from the age 10 and above start to develop signs of dyslexia, but it becomes harder as they get older as I have found out. My personal thoughts on anxiety in society, is that people can change the way they live there lives. That can decrease the chance of developing anxiety, I have personally made the change myself to cut down on my phone time, and spend more time with my family and friends rather then talking to them through a phone