Curiosity Of The World

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My overall reaction to the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Hadden was that it was quite interesting at first then later as I read further into the book I found myself getting frustrated with it. The structure of the novel at some points had me confused to what was taking place because I felt like thoughts were all over the place, and I found myself having to reread a scene twice to make sure I understood it well especially the ones that contain numbers. Later, I understood that the effect of this was for readers to really be inside Christopher's perception of things and how individual with this disorder deal with this only a daily basis. This novel did a good job of displaying the daily struggles for individuals that are deal with ASD, and provided readers with perspectives that society labels as being outside of the "norm". In the course of this novel I also feel like I would now be able to know how to deal with an individual who has ASD, and how to approach a situation.  
Mark Haddon did a wonderful job of showing readers how individuals with ASD see the world, and how it operates differently for them. The quote, "And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end" (Haddon 61-62) displays the opposite views of how Christopher sees the world because his world operates with logic reasoning where the outcome of a scenario will always make sense, and be the same no matter the circumstances being that it has already happened and doesn’t change over time. Christopher's perception of how the world operates explains the reason why things such as time, numbers, equations, sequence, and scheduling are important to him because he feels these things stay the same and will never change which is easier for him to understand without questioning it.  
One thing I did question in reading this novel, was the environment that Christopher was a part of. I wondered if maybe Christopher disorder was harder to cope with in terms of communicating with others because of how it was displayed in his home. Christopher doesn’t see his parents communicate on a positive level, or displaying affection and comfort in order for him to get an idea of the proper way to interact with other individuals. Instead Christopher seen his parents spend more time focused on other things, people, or just not communicating in a happy manner so maybe this influenced the way Christopher felt he should deal with others as well. Overall, I feel this book encourages me to be more open minded when listening to others opinions in general because we all may have our own perception rather it be based off someone's background, a disorder, or just being different altogether.  

Comments

  1. Taylor SimmonsSeptember 26, 2017 at 2:50 PM

    I definitely agree with you about getting frustrated while reading. It kind of bothered me how in certain parts of the story it seemed like it would jump straight from one thing to the next and just like you, I had to go back and re-read some parts as well. Your question about Christopher's environment really has me thinking about how his environment may have affected him. I do not know much about Autism, but I also wonder that if Christopher's broken home and the lack of communication he has inside his home had a part in why Christopher is the way he is when it comes to strangers and how he reacts in certain situations.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 28, 2017 at 7:45 PM

    I agree with this, and it really made me think when you suggested it in class the other day. The environment a child is brought up in impacts his or her development significantly. Yes it does encourage me to be more open minded and to teach others to be more open minded as well. We often make misconceptions based on false implications or assumptions. Great post

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