ENGLISH ESSAY
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a postmodern novel about a mathematician whose defining characteristic is inability to empathize. In the novel, Haddon’s perspective on communication/truth is that it is subjective and can be difficult. The self-reflexivity inherent in the novel gives readers an insight into the working of the mindset we would otherwise be strange and empathetic of. Therefore, the distinctive features including subjectivity and difficulty about communication/truth are conveyed throughout the novel.
Christopher’s condition causes him to see the world in an uncommon way, and much of the novel allows the reader to share Christopher’s unique perspective. To take one example, he tells us about the trouble he has recognizing facial expressions and the difficulty he had as a child understanding how other people respond to a given situation, explaining his preference for being alone that we see throughout the novel. In this way both difficulty and pain are subjective. The use of anaphora when Christopher says “And father said, ‘Christopher, do you understand that I love you?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’” makes the reader anticipate to the next sentence trying to figure out what Christopher’s perspective may conclude to as it is difficult to comprehend of his unique perspective. Although the reader recognizes that Christopher has an uncommon perspective of the world, the novel suggests that everyone, in fact, has a subjective point of view. When Christopher quotes “Loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble”, the novel allows the reader to empathize with Christopher by giving them an explanation of his unique mindset and the way he goes about his meaning. As a result, the reader is able to take on Christopher’s perspective as his own and to understand Christopher’s reasons for behaving as he does. Christopher’s point of view loses its strangeness and seems merely unique as it highly subjective.
Distinctive features about truth and lying are first developed in the novel through Haddon’s exploration of the fact that people may have different perspectives about what a lie is and it may be difficult. This is shown through the character of Christopher, who uses first person narration to communicate his opinion on lying in the quotation, “A lie is when you say something that happened which didn’t happen.” This quotation shows us that Christopher’s view on lying is very simplistic and literal. Another example of Christopher’s difficult perspective on lying is the quotation “This is called a white lie. A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth, but you don’t tell all of the truth.” This is a digression from the main plot in which Christopher shows that his understanding of lying is not the same as most people, who would think that “white lies” are also misleading and dishonest. These two examples emphasise that Christopher’s perspective on lying is a result of the literal way he views of the world, and highlights that individuals may have different perspectives on lying cause of their background and personality. Therefore, it is clear that Haddon develops the theme of truth and lying by establishing that people have unique perspectives on what lying actually is and how it can be a difficult truth.
The Monty Hall Problem that forms one of Christopher’s multimodal digressions in the text functions to explain how common perceptions about truth/communication can be wrong. The mathematical example he provides that was sent to Marylin Vos Savant in 1990 to answer in her column of the Parade Magazine is expressed visually and in its original mathematical formula. The visual representation of the question about the chance of a car behind three doors, is shown in graph form to explain how Vos Savant was correct. Through this multimodal representation Christopher is able to simplify a difficult mathematical question. More importantly he is able to show how even with the criticism that Vos Savant received from multiple academics, the truth/communication can stand alone. This example indicates that communication of truth has to be clear and obvious if people are to understand it.
In summary, the self-reflexivity inherent in the novel gives readers an insight into the working of the mindset we would otherwise be strange and empathetic of against truth. The distinctive features including subjectivity and difficulty about communication/truth are also strongly conveyed throughout the text to emphasise uniqueness of perspectives.