Mark Haddon's Picture of Us

Mark Haddon is masterful in replicating a ubiquitous lifestyle that a person can relate to in his novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by incorporating characters with colorful descriptions. While the characters are not idiosyncrasies of the sublime model regarded by romantics, they resemble the attributes of a normal person. The descriptions of the plot and characters seem as if Haddon is rehashing many of his personal stories into the novel.

By delving into the autistic mind of Christopher Boone’s isolated world, Haddon empathizes with the characteristics of a mentally challenged person’s behavior to create an imperfect, yet human protagonist. Since Christopher is characterized as a victim suffering from autism, the “Herculean” hero stereotype diminishes and the normal human behavior character appears to be obvious. However, Haddon balances Christopher’s picky superstitions with his extraordinary ability to have a photographic memory, clever puzzle solving quirks, and a superior mathematical intellect. Throughout the novel, Christopher provides the readers with his mathematical skills that calm his anxiety attacks. He would count to the highest prime number or think of intricate math problems such as Conway’s Soldiers at the rail station. His ability to create an overhead map of unfamiliar areas based on his extraordinary memory skills just like a lost tourist may try to regain his sense of direction. By using his logical, yet resourceful problem solving methods to find a nearby place, Christopher explains, “ . . . if something is nearby you can find it by moving in a spiral, walking clockwise and taking every right turn until you come back to a road you’ve already walked on, then taking the next left, then taking every right turn and so on…”(139). Although Christopher suffers from autism, he effectively uses his mathematical skills and problem solving ingenuity to cope with his problems that allow him to behave more like a normal child.

Haddon further stresses the human characteristics by focusing on Christopher’s fears, problems, and interests to exemplify a typical teenager who suffers from normal problems. Haddon accentuates Christopher’s fear of strangers to further demonstrate natural childlike fears. To strangers, Christopher becomes very anxious when he does not recognize a person. He does not know Mrs. Alexander, his neighbor; and therefore, he hesitates to have tea with her. Christopher has a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder-like superstition that is very juvenile similar to those of spoiled children. For example, he does not like the colors yellow and brown. Based on colors, he believes if he sees four yellow cars in a row, he would expect a bad day ensuing. He adds red food coloring to foods that are yellow and brown, because red colored food is considered good. Moreover, Christopher will not eat foods where they touch. However, his autism can justify his focus on trivial and picky superstitions that separate him from the romantic hero.

Although Christopher characterizes human emotions as either happy or sad, he, like most humans, is compassionate for the well being of animals. Upon the discovery of the grotesque murder of Mrs. Shears’ poodle, Wellington, Christopher embraces it and mourns its death. His natural curiosity is representative of human behavior because it soon becomes an incessant obsession to find its killer. Although his father forbids him to continue the investigation of the death of Wellington by hiding his detective journal, Christopher rebels against his father’s wish and secretly searches for more evidence. Like most pet owners, Christopher is closely attached to his pet, Toby. During a typical weekday, Christopher would spend twenty-three minutes feeding and playing with his rat. (156) At the railway station, Christopher risks his life to rescue Toby from the tracks as an oncoming train approaches him. Passionate pet owners are very close to their animals and would never like to see their pets in danger.

Mark Haddon’s epitome of humans in his novel is parallel to today’s natural human behavior and descriptions. His vicarious description of Christopher Boone’s eccentric behavior and mind is considered naturally human behavior because of his thorough understanding of the nuances in autism, affecting the mind of teenagers. (682)