Curious_Dog_in_the_Night-Time

By using a first-person narrator, the author is able to gain our sympathy for and understanding of Christopher because we learn to see things from his perspective' Do you agree' Atticus from To Kill a Mockingbird once said; “You never know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” This is something that Mark Haddon wants his audience to go and do. He wants his audience to walk in the shoes of Christopher; a fifteen year old genius that suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. He wants them to feel and understand how it is in the world that Christopher lives in, and by writing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in first person, he is able to achieve this. Christopher’s unique view of the world allows the reader to view the events that unravel from his perspective. When Christopher discovers letters addressed to him from his supposedly dead mother with a timestamp dated on “16th October 1997...18 months after Mother had died.”, although it is obvious to the reader that his mother is in fact alive and well, we still sympathise for Christopher as he is unable to comprehend the truth and makes it into a mystery in which he must solve. Christopher, using his logical thinking and Chain of Reasoning, tries to justify reasons as to why the letters are dated after his mother’s death; “Perhaps the letter was in the wrong envelope...why was she writing from London'”. We learn that his father is protecting Christopher from the fact that his mother had abandoned them for another man. By using first person, the reader is able to gain a better insight into Christopher’s character, way of thinking and relationships. Mark Haddon is able to make his readers feel the emotions and personality of Christopher by writing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in first person. As a reader you are able to gain an insight into Christopher’s personality when he writes pages that are slightly off topic from the murder mystery such as how “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is his favourite book, as well as how Christopher believes that he is very much like Sherlock Holmes as he is able to “detach his mind at will”. When Christopher reads the bulk of the letters from his mother and his father realises that Christopher knows that he has been lying to him, it feels as if you understand how Christopher feels, disbelief, helpless and whether or not he can trust anyone if the one he trusts the most has lied to him. You are able to feel this because the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is written in first person letting the reader feel the emotions that Christopher does not express. This is something that cannot be replicated if written in any other form of writing not related to first person. You sympathise with Christopher and how the world around him doesn’t act in the ways that he wants it to be. Because “people do a lot of talking without any words” and “people often talk using metaphors” it confuses Christopher as “the word metaphor is a metaphor” and Christopher believes that metaphors “should be called lies”. You also see how it is hard for Christopher “to spot a rhetorical question.” as he cannot distinguish the differences between a rhetorical and genuine question. Nearing the end of the novel Christopher describes his favourite dream, where everyone that isn’t like Christopher dies from a virus as they are the only ones that will get infected and in the end the only people that are left on earth are those that have autism. This means that Christopher is able to communicate with the remaining people on earth as they all communicate in their own unique yet same way. The reader is able to understand why Christopher would like the world to become like this as he/she feels how hard the world is treating Christopher due to his condition. The reader is able to learn more about Christopher and how the condition of Asperger’s affects the way he acts. He talks about how he is fascinated by diagrams and how they help him understand and communicate with others. As the narrator of the novel he felt it necessary that he included these diagrams and maps to help try and communicate his point across to his audience. He tells us how his mind is very much like a DVD player where he is able to “Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause” when people ask him to remember something. He also tells of his ability to “do a Search” to see if he had seen or heard something in the past. He uses these two abilities to take him to the past giving him information from past experiences related to the present situation that may help him understand, communicate and act. Mark Haddon has written The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in first person as this is the best way for the reader to connect, learn, understand and feel for his narrator; Christopher. If written differently from this form, the effectiveness of the ability to engage with the reader is lost. Writing in first person was the only and best way for Mark Haddon to get his point of view across.