The Curious incident of the dog in the night- time.

Matthew MaisonneuveSteven Phomsombath

Ranier MendozaDavid Subramaniaiyer

Kim-Khoi PhamJayson Phan

Summary of The Curious Incident. 

The curious incident of the dog at night time begins with Christopher, the protagonist, finding a dead dog named Wellington. Christopher likes dogs so he approaches him, intrigued by knowing who killed him. The police quickly come and ask Christopher various questions, and ends up touching Christopher. He doesn’t like people touching him so he punches the officer and then he is sent to jail. In a few moments, his dad picks him up. Christopher’s mind is quickly filled with the thought of who killed Wellington, so he decides to do some detective work to solve the mystery, and to record all of his findings in this book that he is writing.

 After doing many investigations, his dad gets mad at him and takes his book away. Out of the

usual, Christopher avoids breaking a promise made with his dad and goes in his dad’s room to find the book. Excited to find his book, Christopher stumbles upon a box full with letters from this mysterious person, and all of the letters are addressed to him. He later finds out that the letters were from his mom, which was presumed dead 2 years ago by a heart problem. His dad tries to consolidate him by saying he had no choice to lie about his mother’s death and reveals that he, in fact, was the one that killed Wellington.

 Christopher gets afraid that his dad is able to kill him at any time so he decides to run away to

London, where his mom lives. After a long and hard journey, fighting his autistic habits, he finally reaches his mom at London, in which he stays. His dad comes to finds Christopher and threatens to sue his mom over their son’s custody. In the end, his mom moves back in the same city as Christopher’s father, and his dad makes it up by getting a dog for Christopher.   

Detailed character sketch of ChristopherChristopher’s narration is first person. He talks throughout the novel

as if he is explaining something to another person. This is evident by Christopher giving his opinion on situations that are out of his comfort zone. He also goes into details with conversations he had with another person. An example would be when Christopher talked to the police officer.

A character trait for Christopher would be that he is intelligent. It is clear that he is intelligent when he got a high mark on his high level math exam at the end of the novel. He also uses math formulas to substitute objects to solve a problem that is happening to him. This happens frequently throughout the novel.

Christopher’s behaviour is cautious. He does not talk to strangers unless he feels that he is obligated to. For example is when he needed to find a route to his mother’s house, he talked to a stranger to get a general idea where he needed to go. Another example would be when he went through the park with his neighbour to find out why his father disliked Mr. Shears.

Secondary characters Mr. Boone: Ed Boone, his real name, is the father of Christopher Boone. He owns

a heating maintenance and boiler repair business. He takes care of Christopher and sees to his every need. He is a caring and loving father towards him. “Christopher, I would never, ever do anything to hurt you.”(p.219). But he can also be aggressive, due to the fact that he has all that anger built up inside. Ed Boone is really important in this book, because without him hiding those letters from Christopher, we would have never seen him grow up and become independent.

Siobhan: She is Christopher’s primary teacher at school. She is very humble and a very intellectual being. Siobhan teaches and guides Christopher to expand his horizons socially as well as academically. “Siobhan said that the book should begin with something to grab people’s attention.”(p.5). She is a very important character due to the fact that she teaches Christopher the right ways to live on and become a great individual.

Mrs. Gascoyne: Mrs. Gascoyne, although not as known in the book as Wellington, Mrs. Shears prized puddle, she still plays a very important role in Christopher’s live academically. She is Christopher’s school principal, she is strict but isn’t that how most principals are. Mrs. Gascoyne is also very generous; I mean at first she wasn’t too fond of Christopher taking his A-level math exam but she did agree to it, because she wanted to give him a chance to be somebody

Settings someone needs to do it. The Setting is information on the time , place and atmosphere .

It takes place in a small town Swindon Wiltshire situated In England , In the suburbs , a quiet little neighbourhood where nothing much happens and all the neighbours know each other. Some neighbours have grudges with each other for personal reasons .

The Time is approximately the beginning of the 21st century and sometimes gives flashbacks to the 1990s. At this Time London was a growing community exploiting the tourism business , they created the London Eye .

The atmosphere of this book switches often, at the beginning when feel kind of bad for him because he is autistic , later on we see he is very intelligent and independent for an autistic child. The Atmosphere at the beginning is calm and nothing is really happening near the end the pace of the book elevates and we have a runaway drama story.

Topics and themes Why he likes Math: Christopher uses math as a solution in life. Basically he uses

it to describe anything, because he finds it very logical. But for most people, it is really complex and very confusing. He enjoys learning anything in relation to mathematics, due to the fact that he considers it like a dictionary or video games.

Why he likes Sherlock Holmes: Christopher Boone likes Sherlock Holmes, because he can really relate to him very much. For instance, he likes solving crimes, like the incident when Wellington, Mrs. Shears prize position dog. He also stays concentrated and extremely focused on one thing. For example, if he is solving a math problem and Chris is really concentrated on it, he will blur out everything and every sound surrounding him. Because he is so focused. Christopher can also relate to Sherlock, for the fact that they both have sidekicks. Sherlock’s sidekick is Dr. Watson and Christopher’s is Toby; his pet rat.

His reactions to the letters: Christopher was extremely stupefied, because he finds out something really shocking... That his mother is still healthy and alive and his dad has been lying to him the whole time by telling him that she died from a heart attack. The letters also led him to knowing more of the truth from his father. For instance, Christopher found out that his own father killed the dog.

SymbolsTheir are many symbols in this book like the Math equations he

uses in life , the maps he makes up in his head and how he use his Swiss army knife in situations.

Math Equations: he uses them to solve his every day problems and hobbys , when we would usually just use common sense.

Maps: His makes up maps in his head of every new place he visits so he feels comfortable.

Swiss Army Knife : He always has a Swiss army knife on him to he feels secure and when people approach him he threatens top take it out.

GenresThe curious incident of the dog in the

night-time” is mainly composed by three genres:

-Bildungsroman

-Detective fiction/Murder mystery

-Quest narrative

Quest NarrativeQuest narrative is a type of novel where the author

describes anything he sees, experienced, discovered or whatever he is thinking at the moment. Christopher is very specific and precise when it comes to narrating. He likes to use math terms and compare things to his favourite mathematicians in his narration. ```The curious incident of the dog in the night-time`` is a quest narrative, because Christopher tells you everything he sees and feels. Christopher describes how he wanted to be in level A math and go to university to become a scientist. He also describes how he wanted to find the person who killed Wellington, how he feels when he is uncomfortable, his trip to London and many more scenes.

Detective Fiction/ Murder Mystery.. Murder mystery and Detective fiction is types of

novels about detectives investigating crime scenes and solving cases. One day, Christopher found Ms. Sheers dog dead near her house. Christopher decided to find out who killed Wellington. ``The curious incident of the dog in the night-time`` is a detective fiction, because Christopher is trying to figure out who killed Wellington and who was writing him the letters. He asked people if they saw anything to help him find the suspect. He looked for clues and narrowed down who might be the killer. In the end, his father admitted to him that he killed Wellington and that his mother was the one who wrote him the letters.

Bildungsroman Bildungsroman is a type of novel about the psychological growth of the

protagonist of the story. Christopher has Asperger syndrome. That means he has problems interacting with people and likes to be independent. He hates it when people touch him. He does not like it when people make fun of him. He is very cautious when it comes to the people that surround him. When he feels uncomfortable, he starts yelling or he tries to avoid stuff that is making him feel uncomfortable ``The curious incident of the dog in the night-time` `is a Bildungsroman novel, because it shows you the psychological improvement of Christopher becoming a more sane person and becoming a more tolerant child. For example, Christopher used to cherish and love his father, until he found out that his dad killed Wellington. Christopher decided to run away from home, because he thinks that his father might kill him too. In the end, Christopher`s father bought him a dog to show him that he loves him and begs for his forgiveness. Christopher decided to forgive his dad`s sins even though Christopher has problems understanding things and being really scared of his father.