What Is The Courage In The Curious Incident Of The Dog At Night

The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 1 in every 100 children live with a form of autism. In the novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon the teen protagonist, Christopher is suspected to have a form of autism. His mission throughout the novel is to find out who killed his neighbor’s dog, Wellington. Along the way, Christopher faces tough decisions, but courage allows him to discover significantly more than just who killed Wellington. Specifically, he learns that courage is the key to discovering the truth, which is the theme in this novel. Christopher not only dares to go against his idiosyncratic behaviors to discover the truth, but also disobeys others and uses logic rather than relying on intuition,

After Christopher learns that his mom is still alive, he goes to the train station to purchase a ticket to travel to his mom’s house in London. While at the train station he “didn’t like the ticket being half yellow but had to keep it because it was [his] train ticket”(153). Although the color of a train ticket isn’t important for most people, to Christopher it is. Christopher doesn’t like the color yellow because to him, yellow holds many negative connotations. So, Christopher will do whatever it takes to avoid the color yellow. But at the train station he has the courage to fight the voice in his head telling him not to keep the train ticket, because he is determined to get to his mother’s house. For Christopher, the truth is important, so knowing that his dad lied to him about his mother being alive breaks the trust he has for his father. Furthermore, while Christopher is waiting for his next train, he becomes overwhelmed: “[He] felt the feeling like a balloon inside [his] chest”(177). Being in an unfamiliar environment is taxing for Christopher, but he takes on the challenge to navigate a train station by himself despite his chest hurting and him struggling to breathe.. Against all odds he still wants to reach his mother’s

Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at Christopher's school, thinks that Christopher likes math because there is always a straightforward answer in the end. Christopher proves that numbers are not always straightforward when he describes The Monty Hall Problem, which takes courage. In this problem, you are on a game show and asked to choose 1 of 3 closed doors. 1 door has a car behind it and the other 2 doors have a goat behind them. You choose a door, but before it’s opened the host opens a different door and reveals a goat. You can then either choose to stick to your original door or switch to the other door. Most people would choose to not switch doors because they think there is a fifty-fifty chance of getting a car. Christopher uses an equation to explain why there is a ⅔ of a chance to get a car if you switch from your original door. Christopher says “And this shows that intuition can sometimes get things wrong”(65). This is foreshadowing to later parts of the book because Christopher is put into multiple situations where he has to gain the courage to use logical thinking to uncover reality. After Christopher and his father get into a fight, his dad takes away the book he has been writing. So, when Christopher’s father is out, he goes on a detective hunt to find where he put the book. While doing so, he accidently finds letters written to him by his mother, who his