The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time:

In “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” Christopher, a 15-year-old boy diagnosed with Autism finds the need to achieve justice for Wellington, the neighbor's dead poodle.

Unknown motives leave Christopher suspicious as to the murderer, and events take a quick turnaround once he finds his mother’s hidden mail while searching for his notebook. After realizing his own father, Ed Boon was the murderer Christopher sets off to find his mother in London. This essay will examine the way Christopher develops throughout the story by exploring Christopher’s curiosity, anxiety, and logical thinking.

Christopher’s curiosity leads him finding a dead poodle, Wellington. As Christopher’s curiosity gets the best of him Christopher sets off to investigate the death of Wellington even against his father, Ed Boon. “I told you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”(Page 49) Christopher’s curiosity about Wellington leads him documenting his journey in a journal. As Christopher is documenting his experience Ed finds this and confiscates it. While searching for his journal Christopher finds his mother’s hidden mail. “I’m sorry Christopher. I’m so, so sorry.” “You read the letters.”(Page 114) These actions led by Christopher’s curiosity makes him grow by making him explore outside of his bubble. With Christopher’s curiosity making him explore he also seems to develop anxiety.

Shortly after finding out that his own father, Ed Boone had killed Wellington Christopher no longer feels safe living with him. “The other was being frightened of being near where Father lived.”(Page 136) Due to this Christopher decides to set off to London to go live with his mother. Along the way to school, he sees his father’s truck parked outside the school and is suddenly scared as he vomits on the sidewalk. Christopher then decides to go find the train station by himself upon arrival at the station Christopher finds himself in a crowd of people he describes it as “standing on a cliff in a really strong wind” (Page 145). Christopher feels sick and has mixed emotions and wants to go home but at the same time, he is also scared of his father leaving him with no other choice. After Christopher comes out of hiding behind some luggage he sees his bag is gone, and everyone who boarded the train. He leaves the train and into a group of people in the train station and Christopher begins to feel pain so he covers his ears and begins to groan. After Christopher finishes groaning he closes his eyes to block out his view which helps him refocus. With these experiences with anxiety, Christopher begins to develop methods that make him calm down.

Lastly, Christopher develops logical thinking to help him calm down in tough situations. Examples include blocking out noise, closing his eyes, and using