THE Curious Incident OF THE DOG IN THE Night 2 PDF

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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT...

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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME SUMMARY One night, Christopher Boone finds his neighbor's dog dead in her front yard, with a pitchfork sticking out of it. Eek – we're off to an interesting start, that's for sure. Anyway, Christopher wonders who killed it, and decides to write a book in which he tries to figure it out, like a murder mystery novel. Christopher has a disability – unspecified in the book, but which has been compared with an autism spectrum disorder called Asperger syndrome – that makes it difficult for him to understand social norms like body language and other forms of human interaction. He is, however, tremendously good at math and more logic-based skills (like writing a crazily-detailed daily schedule, or drawing intricate maps of places he's only visited once). Christopher's neighbor, Mrs. Shears, finds him with her (now-dead) dog, calls the police, and Christopher has to spend a few hours in a jail cell. Eventually, his father comes to get him, and tells Christopher to not investigate the dog's death any further. So, in response, Christopher thinks of all kinds of ways to interpret his father's demand as specifically as possible… so he can still do all of his detective work while somehow not disobeying him. He starts asking around the neighborhood to see if anyone knows anything about the dog's death. He decides that since Mr. Shears left his wife two years ago, perhaps he hates her, and killed her dog to make her sad. (Seems like a stretch, but you never know.) When Christopher's father finds out he's been asking people about the dog, he makes him promise he'll stop. Again. Christopher promises. So, of course, Christopher continues talking to one of his neighbors, who tells him that his (Christopher's) mother and Mr. Shears were having an affair before he left Mrs. Shears. That's bad news. But Christopher tells her that his mother died two years ago, of a heart attack. Christopher's father finds the detective book Christopher has been writing, in which he's recorded everything that has happened so far. He's really mad about it, and takes the book away. A few days later, Christopher searches the house for the book, and finds it hidden in his father's bedroom. But here's the kicker: he also finds a big stack of letters addressed to him, from his mother. He reads a few of them, and discovers that – wait for it – she's actually still alive! His father had been lying to him this whole time. His father apologizes for lying, and also admits that he was the one who killed Mrs. Shears' dog. As it turns out, he has feelings for Mrs. Shears, and was mad that she didn't want to be with him. Whoa. Christopher decides that living with his father is no longer such a great (or safe) idea – he is a dog-killer after all – and thinks it's best to move to London and live with his

mother. Problem is, he's never gone anywhere by himself before, and has difficulty being in busy places and/or around large groups of people. The journey is, as we might then expect, incredibly challenging. First, after he runs away, his father enlists the police to try to find him. He manages to escape anyway, but then he's totally overwhelmed, being on his own like this. He repeatedly vomits and passes out and just feels horribly sick. Hours and hours later, he arrives at his mother's apartment in London. She's living with none other than Mr. Shears. Christopher tells her that his father said she was dead, and she's horrified to learn this. When Christopher's father comes to find him, she demands he leave and insists that poor Christopher can live with her. But Christopher is afraid of Mr. Shears, and is quite eager to go back home to take an important exam that will help him get into university. After about a week, he and his mom go back home, and Christopher takes the exam (even though he can't think straight, after not eating or sleeping for days on end). His mother gets a job and a not-so-nice apartment, which Christopher hates. Meanwhile, his father tries very hard to earn back his trust. He buys him a puppy (that's some brownie points right there), and Christopher begins spending some time at his house again. He receives his exam results, and finds out that he got the best possible score. Having successfully traveled to London on his own, and solved the mystery of who killed the dog, he's sure he can do anything. We agree.

THEMES THEME OF ISOLATION In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher is isolated, and so totally psyched about it. He doesn't like being around people, really doesn't enjoy talking, and absolutely hates being touched. When he wants to relax, he just crams himself into the smallest space he can fit into, and hangs out there for a few hours. But at the same time, he's deeply connected to the world around him. He understands things that few of us could dream of grasping (for example, astrophysics), and notices his surroundings in more detail than we could ever imagine. In fact, one reason he likes being shut into dark spaces is because he experiences the world around him so intensely that it's simply overwhelming; only with distance can he really relax and process all that information. So in a way, the more isolated he is, the more connected he becomes.

THEME OF VERSIONS OF REALITY Christopher Boone sees the world much differently from the rest of us, that's for sure. He notices much more of what's going on around him – he's quite the observer, after all – but he can't quite seem to interpret all those detailed observations. This guy is so enveloped by his own vision that he's almost wholly disinterested in the things he's missing. And as it happens, Christopher realizes that his "reality" has actually been built on lies. Much of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of what happens when Christopher is

subjected to all the crazy things from which he's been sheltered – that is, reality as most of us know it. Crazy, indeed.

THEME OF ORDER AND LOGIC Christopher likes for things to be in a very particular order. He doesn't mind the lady who lives next door moving in after his mom dies, just as long as she keeps the jars in the kitchen ordered according to size. He's also very logical about the world, but at the expense of civility and sentiment. (He tells a priest there's no such thing as God because nothing can exist outside of the universe, for one.) These two factors – order and logic –unite in the realm of mathematics, where Christopher is happiest. Bottom line: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time reminds us life is pretty chaotic (and that's so not okay with Christopher).

THEME OF FEAR The world is a dangerous place – at least according to Christopher Boone, who sees danger in anything and everything that's unfamiliar to him. Most of the time he's okay since he makes sure to stay within his comfort zone. But, halfway through The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, circumstances force him to bravely thrust himself outside that bubble, and the world he finds outside is a scary place indeed. Why is it so scary? One could argue that it has a lot to do with the degree to which Christopher is able to control every aspect of his daily life, and predict every event sneaking up around the corner. When that tight control is taken away, he's absolutely paralyzed by fear. And we all know that "tight control" is simply impossible to achieve all the time.

THEME OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION Think of the most frustrating conversation you've ever had. Maybe it was with a customer service representative, or the voice on the loudspeaker in the drive-thru. The times when it just seemed like, although you and the other person were technically speaking the same language, you simply couldn't manage to be understood (or understand). This is what it's like for Christopher to talk to, well, anyone. He doesn't know the small quirks of language that we take for granted: the turns of phrase, the sarcasm, the slang, the lingo. You feel for him, because he's trying so hard, so earnestly hoping to communicate effectively. But in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the policeman, the shop owner, and the neighbor are all taken aback by Christopher's flat, straight way of speaking. What effect does this have on Christopher? How would things be different for him if he could better communicate himself, and better understand those around him?

THEME OF LIES AND DECEIT You might not notice how often Christopher mentions lying in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – until he's hit with one very big lie that turns his world upside-down. He can't help but take lying very seriously, since he's so dependent on those around him to help him understand the subtle aspects of human interaction. But he allows himself more wiggle room in sometimes telling some fibs, especially when he sets out on his forbidden detective adventure. In a way, we can forgive him, since no one else is dependent on his

words like he is on theirs. But it's still rather surprising, the way he twists logic to support his… dishonesty? Can we use so strong a word? We're not sure. Maybe "not-total-honesty" would be better, or "kinda-sorta-lying." But those aren't real words. Can you think of a better way of putting it?

THEME OF LOVE It's not so easy to talk about love in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, mostly because its narrator really doesn't understand the concept the way most people do. He has defined a list of behaviors associated with love, so theoretically he can recognize it when he sees it. But this approach really can't come close to truly understanding what love is, and the intangibles of it – the things we simply can't name. So, love in this book is very one-sided: Christopher's parents love their son, but can't expect that love to be returned. If Christopher does love them, it's surely something very different from what they feel. There are also a few examples of unrequited love among the adults, but we're not even going to go there. We're way more interested in Christopher's strong feelings for animals – when he kneels on the ground to hug a bloody dead dog, he can't possibly expect his love to be returned in kind.

THEME OF FREEDOM AND CONFINEMENT We're dealing with a lot of different factors of freedom and confinement in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual. At times, these factors are oppositionally related – that is, more freedom in one means more confinement in another. For example, Christopher thinks most clearly when he's hidden in tight spaces: physical confinement results in mental freedom. His emotional state is trickier, because he's by nature closed-down and internally-focused. His spiritual life is, in one sense, one of boundless curiosity and depth, and in another sense, one of narrow judgmental ridicule. Ultimately, we could say that Christopher's freedom allows him to be confined, as much as his confinement gives him great freedom.

THEME OF IDENTITY We're not quite sure how to describe Christopher's self-identification in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Self-centered? Self-involved? Self-obsessed? None of these seem quite right. They all suggest some egotistical prom queen or something, who thinks she's better than everyone else. No, Christopher's focus on himself is almost absolute; he's utterly wrapped within the cocoon of his own mind. He has trouble understanding what other people think, feel, and believe. So his self-identity, his idea of himself, is practically the same as his sense of the outside world too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the things we usually associate with identity – chief among them our faces and our names – are things Christopher doesn't understand, doesn't care about, or doesn't like. This makes sense, because when you think about it, these things are only important as ways for other people to identify us. And Christopher doesn't seem to care much about being identified by other people.

THEME OF TRUTH

Truth can mean a lot of different things. There's "the truth," as in the opposite of a lie, and then there's "Truth" (yes, with a capital T), like the ultimate truth in the universe. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher has something to say about both of these things, and a number of points in between. Much of the time, he's pointing out other people's stupidity in believing things that aren't, um, true. But what does Christopher believe? Does he even believe in things, or does he just believe in the wrongness of other people's beliefs?...