Ella Johnson Mr. Steele English IV 27 March 2024 Mystery Elements Mark Haddon constructs a narrative using traditional mystery elements throughout the novel to involve the reader in Christopher’s journey. The mystery unfolds when Christopher, a young boy with autism, stumbles across a lifeless dog with a garden fork sticking out of it. This discovery allows Christopher to conduct numerous investigations to find information regarding Wellington's death. Throughout the novel, Christopher gathers clues by questioning his neighbors and visiting house to house to find the truth. Christopher creates a suspenseful plot exploring the mystery of the dog's lifeless body through questioning and investigating. The novel opens up seven minutes after midnight …show more content…
Christopher struggled to understand himself and others' feelings after dealing with this traumatic event, which is when he met Siobhan who drew pictures of faces to describe individual feelings. Christopher knew the face of a sad person “which is what I felt when I found the dead dog” (Haddon 2). The reason Christopher always liked dogs was that “you can always understand what they think”, which helped him connect with them on a different level than he could with real people. Christopher sends himself out to visit Mrs. Shears's house as she answers the door, communicating “I didn't kill Wellington'' (Haddon 30). Mrs Shears became agitated when she was being accused of her own dog's murder, leaving her to shut the door in Christopher's face. Since she gave him no information, he sneaks into Mrs. Shears's garden when he notices the garden fork used in the murder. Once he saw the fork, he knew Mrs. Shears had to have some knowledge about the murder of her dog to have possession of the fork. The story takes a spin when Christopher finds a letter from his mom that exposes information about his father that was kept