Incredibly Close, And The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night By
Jonathan Saffran Foer in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Mark Haddon in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time explore the varying ways in which individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder may perceive the world. Although Safran Foer focuses on themes of national tragedy and grief from the September 11 terrorist attacks and Mark Haddon focuses on becoming independent, the protagonists face similar struggles, which arise from their different view of the world. The protagonists experience difficulties to make friends, understand how their actions affect others and cope with painful emotions, which conveys that to perceive the world differently impacts a persons ability to socialise, express themselves, have empathy for others and control
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their emotions. In both texts the protagonists struggles is conveyed through characterisation, imagery and symbolism to demonstrate how Autism Spectrum Disorder impacts many aspects of a person’s life and others. While it is made clear that an autistic child’s symptoms can never disappear, the texts convey that strategies can be made to reduce symptoms and continue childhood development. We see this through Saffran Foer’s suggestion that struggles to socialise and control emotions of grief and regret can be overcome. Similarly Haddon demonstrates that controlling sensory or emotional difficulties can be achieved and allow a person to be more confident and independent.
Both authors characterise their protagonists with autistic traits, which impact how they socialise, to explore the idea that Autistic children struggle with communicating and relating to others. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Safran Foer characterises Oscar as lacking simple social skills through his interrogating conversation with Gerald where he speaks whatever thought come to his mind, such as that ‘if limousine where extremely long they wouldn’t need drivers’. This remark demonstrates how Oscar’s struggles to self edit or consider how he may confuse or offend other people, something that Christopher is well aware of and the reason being he avoids social interactions and fears strangers. When a police officer questions Christopher he feels like the questions are ‘stacking up in (his) my head like loaves in the factory’ a metaphor, which Haddon uses to symbolise how Christopher became is easily overwhelmed by social interaction in this case he struggles to understand the questions or processing respond acceptably. Another gap in Christopher’s understanding,
which impacts how he communicates with others, is shown through his inability to read peoples facial expressions and understand other people’s emotions, which Haddon emphasises through simple drawings of faces. Similarly Oscar is unable to emphasis with others or understand other people’s emotions. Safran Foer demonstrates his idea through Oscar’s in ability to understand why hiding from his grandma upset her, which helps to convey that the struggle for autistic children to understand others leads to them lacking friends and having unstable relationships with family members. Safran Foer demonstrates Oscar’s loneliness through his emails to celebrities and his list of friends, which only include his family and pet cat. Similarly Christopher lacks friends and shares a love for animals with his pet rat toby, and thinks that animals are better then humans, a belief that Haddon uses to demonstrate the struggle faced by autistic children to socialise with other people. It is through the quests that help Oscar to overcome his social difficulties by forcing him to initiate and sustain conversations with strangers; this can be seen through Oscar’s friendship with Mr Black who accompanies him on his quest. Conversely Christopher communicates with many strangers, which increases his confidence and independence as shown through his thoughts that after his journey he ‘can do anything’ conveying that social difficulties can be overcome.
To explore the idea that feelings of grief and regret may be overwhelming emotions to deal with for autistic children, it stands the reason that both Saffran Foer and Haddon created protagonists which experience the death of a parent. When Oscar learns of his father’s tragic death he feels like he is ‘in the middle of a huge black ocean’, imagery that Saffron Foer uses to convey his grief and depression, as symbolised by his ‘heavy boots.’ Similarly when Christopher learns that his mother is alive and his dad kill Wellington he cannot cope emotionally as shown through Haddon’s use of imagery ‘as if it was at the top of a really tall building and the building was swinging’, the extent of the trauma is symbolised through the gap Christopher’s memory ‘like a bit of tape had been erased.’ Whereby Oskar’s biggest regret by not answering his dad’s phone call ‘was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into’ to convey how he is consumed by his grief. To try to control his grief Oscar invents impossible things such as ‘an incredibly long limousine that had its back seat at your mom’s VJ and its front seat at your mausoleum, and it would be as long as your life’ an invention Oscar invents on the way to his dads funeral which is symbolic of Oscar distracting himself of the reality of his dad’s death. Similarly Christopher’s engages in a habit to deal with his emotional pain, Christopher solves maths problems in his head such as when he ‘doubled twos in my head’, which makes him feel calm and clear. It is thus clear from the protagonist’s great emotional pain that the authors to establish how autistic children ‘think and feel a lot’ or endure a greater struggle to control their emotions. However it is through Oskar forgiving himself for not answer his father’s last phone call, that he can finally be removed of his grief. Safran Foer shows his acceptance of his father’s death this through digging up of his coffin, which look like ‘ the dictionary definition of emptiness’ to convey that he is coming to terms with the tragic reality of his father’s death. For Christopher seeing his mother confirms and he feels safe knowing he knows the truth.
To explore the idea that when you misunderstand the world around you it is a fearful place, authors characterise their protagonists with many fears. Oskar has such fears of ‘ tall buildings, turbans’, something which he grew to fear after his father’s death in the twin tower terrorist attacks. Christopher on the other hand fears strangers, as shown by his actions to protect himself when he threatens a man with his Swiss army knife which conveys his fear is derived from either not understanding other people or other people not understanding him. To further convey how a lack of understanding makes the world confusing and scary the protagonists are characterised of having different ways of thinking. For example Oscar has a vivid imagination and enjoys inventing things, as characterised by Saffran Foer through the imagery of the teakettle, ‘what if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth and it could whistle pretty melodies or do shakespare, or just crack up with me.’ Thus it is clear from such inventions that it is Oscar’s way of trying to improve the world to prevent horrible events such as the Twin Tower Terrorist attacks from occurring. Similarly Christopher is a logical thinker and likes math for the security it gives him to have a straightforward answer, which is a relief for him in a world, which he sees as confusing and unpredictable. Even though this is one of Oscar’s main struggle’s Saffron Foer demonstrates that such fears can be overcome through him traveling to the top of the empire state building.
There are random photos – for example of door knobs, pages with only one line of print on them, blank pages, pages where the text gets smaller and smaller and becomes a black block, and, a series of pages that work as a flip book which show the reverse of reality – a body falling upwards towards one of the Twin Towers. These images convey that autistic people are visual thinkers and help us identify that
For example Christopher notices details such as Mr Jeavons ‘smells of soap and wears brown shoes that have approximately 60 tiny circular holes in each of them.’
their emotions. In both texts the protagonists struggles is conveyed through characterisation, imagery and symbolism to demonstrate how Autism Spectrum Disorder impacts many aspects of a person’s life and others. While it is made clear that an autistic child’s symptoms can never disappear, the texts convey that strategies can be made to reduce symptoms and continue childhood development. We see this through Saffran Foer’s suggestion that struggles to socialise and control emotions of grief and regret can be overcome. Similarly Haddon demonstrates that controlling sensory or emotional difficulties can be achieved and allow a person to be more confident and independent.
Both authors characterise their protagonists with autistic traits, which impact how they socialise, to explore the idea that Autistic children struggle with communicating and relating to others. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Safran Foer characterises Oscar as lacking simple social skills through his interrogating conversation with Gerald where he speaks whatever thought come to his mind, such as that ‘if limousine where extremely long they wouldn’t need drivers’. This remark demonstrates how Oscar’s struggles to self edit or consider how he may confuse or offend other people, something that Christopher is well aware of and the reason being he avoids social interactions and fears strangers. When a police officer questions Christopher he feels like the questions are ‘stacking up in (his) my head like loaves in the factory’ a metaphor, which Haddon uses to symbolise how Christopher became is easily overwhelmed by social interaction in this case he struggles to understand the questions or processing respond acceptably. Another gap in Christopher’s understanding,
which impacts how he communicates with others, is shown through his inability to read peoples facial expressions and understand other people’s emotions, which Haddon emphasises through simple drawings of faces. Similarly Oscar is unable to emphasis with others or understand other people’s emotions. Safran Foer demonstrates his idea through Oscar’s in ability to understand why hiding from his grandma upset her, which helps to convey that the struggle for autistic children to understand others leads to them lacking friends and having unstable relationships with family members. Safran Foer demonstrates Oscar’s loneliness through his emails to celebrities and his list of friends, which only include his family and pet cat. Similarly Christopher lacks friends and shares a love for animals with his pet rat toby, and thinks that animals are better then humans, a belief that Haddon uses to demonstrate the struggle faced by autistic children to socialise with other people. It is through the quests that help Oscar to overcome his social difficulties by forcing him to initiate and sustain conversations with strangers; this can be seen through Oscar’s friendship with Mr Black who accompanies him on his quest. Conversely Christopher communicates with many strangers, which increases his confidence and independence as shown through his thoughts that after his journey he ‘can do anything’ conveying that social difficulties can be overcome.
To explore the idea that feelings of grief and regret may be overwhelming emotions to deal with for autistic children, it stands the reason that both Saffran Foer and Haddon created protagonists which experience the death of a parent. When Oscar learns of his father’s tragic death he feels like he is ‘in the middle of a huge black ocean’, imagery that Saffron Foer uses to convey his grief and depression, as symbolised by his ‘heavy boots.’ Similarly when Christopher learns that his mother is alive and his dad kill Wellington he cannot cope emotionally as shown through Haddon’s use of imagery ‘as if it was at the top of a really tall building and the building was swinging’, the extent of the trauma is symbolised through the gap Christopher’s memory ‘like a bit of tape had been erased.’ Whereby Oskar’s biggest regret by not answering his dad’s phone call ‘was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into’ to convey how he is consumed by his grief. To try to control his grief Oscar invents impossible things such as ‘an incredibly long limousine that had its back seat at your mom’s VJ and its front seat at your mausoleum, and it would be as long as your life’ an invention Oscar invents on the way to his dads funeral which is symbolic of Oscar distracting himself of the reality of his dad’s death. Similarly Christopher’s engages in a habit to deal with his emotional pain, Christopher solves maths problems in his head such as when he ‘doubled twos in my head’, which makes him feel calm and clear. It is thus clear from the protagonist’s great emotional pain that the authors to establish how autistic children ‘think and feel a lot’ or endure a greater struggle to control their emotions. However it is through Oskar forgiving himself for not answer his father’s last phone call, that he can finally be removed of his grief. Safran Foer shows his acceptance of his father’s death this through digging up of his coffin, which look like ‘ the dictionary definition of emptiness’ to convey that he is coming to terms with the tragic reality of his father’s death. For Christopher seeing his mother confirms and he feels safe knowing he knows the truth.
To explore the idea that when you misunderstand the world around you it is a fearful place, authors characterise their protagonists with many fears. Oskar has such fears of ‘ tall buildings, turbans’, something which he grew to fear after his father’s death in the twin tower terrorist attacks. Christopher on the other hand fears strangers, as shown by his actions to protect himself when he threatens a man with his Swiss army knife which conveys his fear is derived from either not understanding other people or other people not understanding him. To further convey how a lack of understanding makes the world confusing and scary the protagonists are characterised of having different ways of thinking. For example Oscar has a vivid imagination and enjoys inventing things, as characterised by Saffran Foer through the imagery of the teakettle, ‘what if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth and it could whistle pretty melodies or do shakespare, or just crack up with me.’ Thus it is clear from such inventions that it is Oscar’s way of trying to improve the world to prevent horrible events such as the Twin Tower Terrorist attacks from occurring. Similarly Christopher is a logical thinker and likes math for the security it gives him to have a straightforward answer, which is a relief for him in a world, which he sees as confusing and unpredictable. Even though this is one of Oscar’s main struggle’s Saffron Foer demonstrates that such fears can be overcome through him traveling to the top of the empire state building.
There are random photos – for example of door knobs, pages with only one line of print on them, blank pages, pages where the text gets smaller and smaller and becomes a black block, and, a series of pages that work as a flip book which show the reverse of reality – a body falling upwards towards one of the Twin Towers. These images convey that autistic people are visual thinkers and help us identify that
For example Christopher notices details such as Mr Jeavons ‘smells of soap and wears brown shoes that have approximately 60 tiny circular holes in each of them.’