Communication Between People In The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time  

Have you ever felt misunderstood? Have you ever felt isolated from the people around you? Have you ever wanted everyone to just leave you alone? In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, written by Mark Haddon, Christopher, the novel’s main protagonist, struggles with trying to relate to other people, has a hard time understanding why people question the way he acts, constantly feels isolated from the people around him, and dreams of being the only human being left on the planet. Christopher has a condition, an unstated form of autism that makes him think and speak differently than all the other characters in the book. What starts as a mystery novel quickly turns into a heart-wrenching story about Christopher’s desire to be understood and to have people that he can trust in his life, who also love him unconditionally. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime shows the reader that even though sometimes our minds work in ways that others cannot relate to, we all want to be understood, even by those who question us when we say what we say and think what we think.

When the story begins, Christopher finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, lying dead in the front yard with a pitchfork sticking out of its stomach. Instead of calling for help or getting an adult, Christopher walks over and kneels to hug the bleeding dog for four minutes under the midnight sky. What follows is Christopher’s quest to find the killer of the dog, whose name was Wellington.

Mark Haddon uses characterization as a way to help us understand what kind of person Christopher is. He knows all the countries of the world and their capitals, and every prime number up to seven-thousand, fifty-seven. He relates to animals more than humans, evident in the way he treats his pet rat, Toby. Christopher hates the colors yellow and brown so much to the point where he will refuse to eat anything that has those colors present. While these characteristics seem strange at first, it’s easy to see that he is not as different as he seems from us. Don’t we all have things we dislike? Don’t we all have our least favorite colors? Don’t we all think that sometimes our pets are the only ones that understand us?

Because the adults in his life cannot relate to the way he feels, Christopher tells the reader of a particular dream that he keeps having where everyone in the world is dead but him. Mark Haddon uses the dream to symbolize Christopher’s feelings of isolation and frustration.

Christopher explains that in his dream he “can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub a coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn’t have to go to France.” (Chapter 229)

Mark Haddon uses the climax of the story as a way for Christopher to be the one to misunderstand. The climax of the story is when Christopher’s dad informs him that he is the one that stuck the pitchfork into the stomach of Wellington. This information proves to be too much for Christopher and devises a plot to escape because of new feelings of distrust towards his father. At this point, the roles are switched. Christopher is the one who does not understand why his father would kill Wellington. Christopher’s dad please “I didn’t know what to say. I was in such a mess. She left a note and…Then she rang and…I said she was in the hospital because…because I didn’t know to explain. It was so complicated. So difficult. And I…I said she was in a hospital. And it wasn’t true. But once I’d said that…I couldn’t…I couldn’t change it. Do you understand…Christopher…? It just…It got out of control and I wish…” (Pg. 114)

Following this turn of events, Christopher strikes out on his own and boards a train to London to live with his mother and her boyfriend. This trip serves as Christopher’s biggest challenge yet as it incorporates everything that Christopher doesn’t like: Busloads of people, loud noise, everyone talking at once, and new environments that he has never seen or been to before. There is also an unbearable amount of new information Christopher receives to board and get off the train to London. He meets and talks to a police officer, who thinks Christopher is joking when he asks how he buys a ticket. The police officer doesn’t make fun of Christopher’s inability to buy his own ticket. This shows how although the policeman found Christopher’s antics strange, he reserved judgment because he understood that his brain worked differently. After this grueling experience, Christopher gains confidence in his abilities to act on his own.

Christopher’s journey proves that there is more to a person than meets the eye and that people should reserve judgment of others, even if their minds do not function in the same way. Mark Haddon’s writing drives home the message that even if we can’t fully relate to each other’s thought processes, we all share the common desire to be accepted and understood.