Awakening Readers Perspective Through the Mark Haddon's Novel

Mark Hadden, the author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” successfully challenges the audience’s perspective on people, ideas and situations to a significant extent by utilising distinct qualities. Haddon has utilised a distinct narrator voice, peculiar protagonist, language features, unique structure and genre to collaboratively create textual integrity and achieve a meaningful purpose regarding people similar to Christopher.

Haddon’s use of a distinct narrator voice and peculiar protagonist challenges the audience to re-evaluate their perceptions of people who view the world in an unconventional manner. Haddon has picked a unique protagonist to showcase his differences, enabling us to see through his complicated mindset. The distinct characterisation of Christopher Boone is effective as it challenges how we perceive people with a difference. Christopher’s autism is not explicitly stated, however, Mark Haddon stated that this novel is about “difference not disability”. The key difference exemplified in the novel is his lack of social skills and the inability to read other’s emotions. This is evident in, “He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other”. The visual imagery utilised was intended to provoke the reader to recognise the devised method of how Christopher expresses his emotions and affection. Christopher’s characterisation can also be identified through his narrator voice. Christopher states he hates lies and always tells the truth. The use of high modality in “And she said, 'Are you telling the truth, Christopher? And then I said, 'I always tell the truth.', reassures his certainty of being truthful. Christopher's relationship is simply formed with the basis of trust, however, he lies to his father on several occasions which makes his statement ironic. One of which, he lies about looking into Wellington’s death. His logic towards trust shows unreliability as he directly links honesty with trust. When Christopher finds out that his father lied regarding the disappearance of his mother, he immediately cuts off his long built trust relationship with his father and fails to understand his intention. The narration can also be deemed as inadequate due to his lack of ability to communicate effectively and his struggle to read the emotions and feelings of others. The audience also gains an appreciation for the families of such individuals as we realise how fragile Christoper is due to his unusual logic. Ultimately the distinct narrator voice and peculiar protagonist successfully challenges our perspective on people like Christopher.

Haddon’s effective utilisation of distinctive qualities of genre and language features enlightens us with a new understanding of ideas regarding people similar to Christopher.. The use of genre and language features re-evaluates our view on how individuals similar to Christopher reacts to change and makes us reconsider the intelligence and capacity of those considered “different” and to challenge those notions. Throughout the novel, we are given insight into Christopher’s mind and how he copes with adjusting to change. Christopher explains his habit of memorising every detail of the environment around him, when he revisits them he is able to state changes that have happened since his last visit. But if Christopher encounters a new place he states it's like “like when a computer gets blocked up and there isn’t any space left to think about other things…sometimes when I am in a new place and there are lots of people it is like a computer crashing and I put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL…” The repetition of similes encourages us to visually picture the scenario of how Christopher copes with change, it draws a comparison with his coping mechanism to a computer crashing. The comparison is made to further emphasise the sensory overload he experiences when he enters a new place with a lot of people. Moreover, the genre of the novel, bildungsroman allows the audience to experience the growth of Christopher from being a very dependant, immature child to a very independent young man with the capabilities of overcoming his own challenges. The growth of his ability to cope and tolerate change is shown in “And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington?” Factual tone is also used to demonstrate the new level of understanding and self-confidence he has established.

The audience is able to renew their understanding of situations of meeting new people and relationship breakdowns as it is showcased through Haddon’s use of expletives and the unique structure of elements. The initial impression of relationship breakdowns stems from a lack of trust or faded love. However, through the inclusion of letters from Mrs Boone, we are able to emotionally connect and deeply understand the reason behind the relationship downfall between Mr and Mrs Boone. The breakdown of the marriage shows the stress and immense pressure placed upon to care for Christopher. The use of letters written by Mrs Boone after she left him, revealed that the relationship faltered due to Mrs Boone not being able to deal with the stress any longer, “But I couldn’t help it anymore.” This defies the assumption of typical relationship breakdowns and encourages the audience to think about the difficulties that the parents endure. The repeated use of expletives used by his father cements the hardships dealt not only by Mrs Boone but his father, ‘Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you?” The audience would assume Christopher doesn’t like meeting new people as a consequence of his lack of social skills, but if we dig deeper into his perplexing mindset wewe identify that Christopher feels vulnerable when he faces an unpredictable encounter and ergo despises strangers. This is evident when Christopher states, 'I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before.” Through the use of factual tone it reveals the strong desire for control and order he has.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime composed by Mark Haddon challenges the audience’s perspective on people, ideas and situations through the use of distinctive qualities. Haddon has used a distinct narrator voice and protagonist to lead the audience into a new understanding for people in our society who see the world in different ways. Through genre and language features we enlightened with a new understanding of ideas regarding people similar to Christopher. Moreover the audience is encouraged to reassess their assumptions on situations of relationship breakdowns and meeting new people, through the use of expletives and unique structure of the novel.

Ultimately through appropriate language and conventions Haddon evokes the audience to reevaluate their beliefs and assumptions towards the universality of difference and the diverse impacts of difference and disability upon both individuals and communities alike.