The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time By Mark Haddon: An Analysis

By Cedric Le Blanc

This novel by Mark Haddon is narrated by a 15 year old boy who seems to have Asperger’s Syndrome.  Asperger’s Syndrome is a developmental disorder within the Autistic Spectrum.  The author never comes out and says that his character has this disorder but it is a generally accepted opinion that the boy, Christopher Boone, is autistic.  In fact, the summary for the Library of Congress identifies the character as having autism.  As someone who has Asperger’s, I think I have to agree even though there are some differences with the character and with me.

There are many similarities between the character and me.  For example, we both like math and are good at.  We enjoy doing math puzzles.  In the book, Christopher works on math puzzles when he’s feeling overwhelmed.  When he ran away from his father and went to his mother’s in London, he worked on “Conway’s Soldiers” when he was in the train station.  This puzzle,

And in Conway’s Soldiers, you have a chessboard that continues infinitely in all directions and every square below a horizontal line has a colored tile on it. . .And you can move a colored tile only if it can jump over a colored tile horiaontally or vertically (but not diagonally) into an empty square 2 squares away.  And when you move a colored tile in this way you have to remove the colored tile that is jumped over . . .And you have to see how far you get the colored tiles above the starting horizontal line,  . . .And I know what the answer is because however you move the colored tiles you will never get a colored tile more than 4 squares above the starting horizontal line, but it is a good maths problem to do in your head when you don’t want to think about something else because you can make it as complicated as you need to fill your brain(pp146-148)

 

I had never heard of this puzzle before but I’ve marked the page and I’ve tried it on graph paper.  When I get overwhelmed, I like to find something to think about that fills my brain rather than what is going on.

            Another example of how Christopher Boone and I are similar is that we both don’t like it when people lie to us.  In the book, Christopher runs away because his Dad lies to him about his mother.  Even though I know why the father lied to Christopher, the particular lie was not justified.  I understand how the character feels because when I find out someone has lied to me; I remember it for a long time.  I’m also not very good at lying to other people.  It just doesn’t seem right.

            There are other similarities between Christopher and myself but, they are too personal to write about and are nobody else’s business.

            There are some differences between Christopher’s  and my experience of having Asperger’s.   He goes to a special school and I don’t.  I’m glad that this is a difference.  I like going to normal school.  When Christopher gets overwhelmed and can’t fill his brain with math puzzles he covers his ears and groans.  When I get overwhelmed, I have been taught to say I’m feeling overwhelmed.  But, sometimes I slip into being angry or trying to start an argument or trying to avoid the issues that are overwhelming me by either pretending it doesn’t exist or by getting myself into trouble or by picking scabs on my body.

            Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily say that Christopher Boone has Asperger’s like me because it seems too different from my experience.  But, its hard for me to know what is an Asperger’s characteristic even if I don’t have it because I only really know what I have.  I do think Christopher has something on the Autism Spectrum but, I’m not sure what.

            This novel is good for people to read if they want to know what one 15 year old boy experiences as an autistic person but, the readers need to remember that it is a spectrum disorder so the experiences are not the same for every one.

 

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