The Curious Incident

The Curious Incident

Literary Analysis of The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time

”My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507”.

Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbours dog outside, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.
Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccable Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. Unfortunately, this investigation uncovers a lot more than the identity of the canine garden fork killer, and he is faced with several difficult emotional issues which his mind is unable to handle. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher’s mind.

The story is written in the first-person narrative of Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old autistic (Asperger’s Syndrome) boy living in Swindon, Wiltshire. He's really good at mathematics, has a photographic memory, is extremely observant and has a pathological inability (he doesn’t have the ability) to tell lies. He lives for logic, and he makes sure his life is in order using lists, routines, maps, diagrams and graphs. He doesn’t like changes and surprises are definitely not welcome, and he likes everything to be predictable and according to a prescribed schedule.
His brain can only take in little information from time to time, when things get too heavy for him when too many details have been attached to his mind, he will lose his mind and start screaming or blackout.
He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. But his teacher, Siobhan tries to help him with it. He cannot stand to be touched, although gifted with a logical brain, Christopher is autistic. “The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like him touching me...

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