The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time essay
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory defines The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as “...a novel which is an account of the youthful development of a hero or heroine...It describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through the various ups and downs of life.” The main character Christopher John Francis Boone is a 15-year-old boy with Autism who has a hard time living a normal life. He cannot be in a loud room full of people or he will fall to the ground covering his ears, screaming. He cannot eat, touch, or look at anything yellow or brown. He does not like being touched and his best friend is his pet rat, Toby. The Curious Incident of the
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On the way to London, Chris overcame his fear of using the toilet. “And then I wanted to go for a wee, but I was on a train. And I didn’t know how long it was going to take us to get to London and I felt a panic starting,... And I didn’t want to use the toilet because of the poo, which was the poo of people I didn’t know and brown, but I had to because I really wanted to wee. So I closed my eyes and went for a wee… (Haddon, 161-162).” Chris used to have an extremely hard time even looking at anything brown so it was a big step for him to be able to use the toilet although it was dirty. Running away by himself showed a huge sense of newfound maturity for Christopher, especially being on a train full of strangers and new smells alone and not knowing where to go. “And I thought, “I can do this,” because I was doing really well and I was in London and I would find my mother. (Haddon, 172).” Christopher had managed to get into London by himself and without getting in trouble by the police, his father finding him, and fighting his tendency to shut down and block the world out when he gets overwhelmed. Overcoming this led to Christopher becoming more independent and willing to do more on his own in order to better