Essay – Analysis of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

I feel that Mark Haddon accurately delineates a boy with Asperger’s syndrome in the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The reason I think this is because when I compared real life symptoms with the ones observed in the book there were a lot of matches. That being said, not every child with Asperger’s syndrome will behave in the same manner as the other or have the same symptoms, so Christopher will have different attributes then other kids will have. For a couple examples he is oversensitive to things, particularly sound, he lacks empathy or understanding, and finally he is very subjective and self-absorbed in a way.

In many different chapters Christopher has shown that he is very oversensitive to some of the five senses, which is one of the symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome “[Kids with Asperger’s] Have heightened sensitivity and become overstimulated by loud noises, lights, or strong tastes or textures” (“Asperger’s Syndrome Symptoms in Children, Teens, Adults”, WebMD, 2010). One of the situations where this is displayed is when he overreacted to when a police officer picked him off the ground. “The policeman took a hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I did not like him touching me like this. And this is when I hit him” (Haddon 8). In this scene he attacks a police officer (who obviously has no intention of harming the boy) simply because he touched him. Another incident further proves that he shows the characteristic of being scared of peoples touch is how he can’t hold his own parents hands. The only thing that his parents can do to him to show affection or show safety is spread out their hands and bring it to his. “Then he held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan” (Haddon 122). In this scene his dad had lied to Christopher by hiding his mother’s location. He tried to show this sign of apology by spreading his fingers out, which is the way that he lets his parents touch him. The other thing that bothers Christopher is sound. He can’t go out in public places or any other place that has a lot of loud noises such as the mall or in a shop because it confuses him and makes him lie down on the floor and groan. This also happens when someone talks too fast and asks too many questions like the police officer did in the beginning. “I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world” (Haddon 7). So Christopher is definitely oversensitive to a variety of senses. Another symptom of Asperger’s Syndrome is the lack of empathy. “Not pick up on social cues and may lack inborn social skills, such as being able to read others’ body language, start or maintain a conversation, and take turns talking” (“Asperger’s Syndrome Symptoms in Children, Teens, Adults”, WebMD, 2010). He doesn’t understand what other people mean when they say things like “I laughed my socks off” or “we had a real pig of the day” (Haddon 15). After this he explains how