Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon, is a novel giving an insight into the world of Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome. This condition leaves Christopher's ability to emotionally connect with other people non-existent. This idea centres around the book’s unique feel and theme of Christopher’s need for order and safety in his life as a necessity to function properly. It is soon clear however, that it is not only Christopher that has emotional issues. What the novel shows is that both his parents have behavioural problems of their own which cause the family to fall apart. Mark Haddon shows us how Christopher has to live, what he goes through and how people treat him to create sympathy in us for him. He used different techniques such as a first-person narrative, juxtaposition, irony, intertextuality and descriptive language to increase our sympathy towards him and enhance our overall understanding of the book.
Haddon tells the story in the first person narrative voice from Christopher’s point of view. This made the book more engaging and increased our sympathy towards Christopher because it was written from the point of view of an autistic teenager and it allowed the reader to get a better picture of how Christopher sees things in the world. This point of view opens our eyes to the many challenges that an autistic teenager like Christopher faces in daily life. For example on page 3, Christopher says he cannot say what the ideograms like "Surprised" or "Confused" mean. This is an example of his inability to interpret emotions. The first person narration makes the text more realistic and it allows you to understand the attitudes, the behaviours, and the personality of an autistic teen but it also opens our minds to the possibility of seeing the world through a different lens.
Haddon also implements many different pictures and diagrams into the book which are extremely effective, in terms of helping the reader