Essay – Characteristics & Values – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Resource Description

The Characteristics, values and beliefs Christopher Boone possesses are quintessential of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. Haddon’s proficient use of a unique narrative style reflected through Christopher’s need for literal meanings and logical order, beliefs and views on religion, beliefs about love and feelings and his memory are all distinctively different to the views, beliefs and values of a person with a conventional mental capacity. Throughout the novel the reader gains an in depth insight into specific elements of Christopher’s personality, the workings of Christopher’s mind and the many hindrances of Asperger’s Syndrome. Christopher’s life revolves around literal meaning; in Chapter 29 we discover he is unable to understand past the definitions of words and into the actual meaning, or connotation, that words and metaphors are intended to carry as this makes Christopher feel confused, unsafe and insecure. “The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another…I think it should be called a lie”. This enhances the readers understanding of the limitations of literal meanings because sometimes words that are spoken are directed for something other than their literally meaning, and other times saying no words and producing actions actually say more than what you want them to be. “The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words… The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors.” As these lines suggest metaphors are ways of carrying a meaning further than what is meant to be taken. The meaning that metaphors carry can be considered the denotation of an item. “I laughed my socks off. He was the apple of her eye,” are just some illustration of metaphors that carry meanings other than the composure of the words. Christopher views metaphors as lies because of the connotations of the words, “I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards”. A further illustration of this is exemplified through assertion “…but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful.” Christopher does not want his name to signify anything other than its literal meaning of just being a name, as he does not want to portray something he views as false or untrue. Christopher’s sense of logical order reveals to the reader specific elements of Christopher’s personality, his obsession with order and numbers and his urgent need to view the world as orderly, as Christopher works to remove any sense of disorder from his life. For instance in Chapter 47 sees lots of red cars in a row; he knows it is going to be a ‘good day’. He explains that “Mr Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a ‘Black Day’, which is a day when I don’t speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don’t eat my lunch…I said that I liked things to be in a nice order”. Through this assertion the reader gains further insight into Christopher’s Asperger’s Syndrome and why he views particular aspects of life in certain ways and the way in which Christopher develops a sense of control over the ambiguities and uncertainties he encounters with in every day aspects of his life through this secure sense of logical order he has created for himself. Essentially Christopher acknowledges that he needs logical order in his life, allowing the reader to recognise that the order Christopher has created can be logical and source of comfort and stability for Christopher. In chapter 199 Christopher’s beliefs about religion reveal to the reader that “people believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance. But they should think logically and if they thought logically they would see that they can only ask this question because it has already happened and they exist.” This assertion is exceptional in illustrating why relishes in science and logic.