The Cxurious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

“The novel shows that many people can have behaviour problems and special needs at some time in their lives.”

Mark Haddon’s “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” is an award winning novel that deals with a boy with a disability, that has to overcome lots of issues such as reading emotion and dealing with his own obsessive nature. But, as well as Christopher, we learn that there are other characters in this book that have special needs and behaviour problems.

Christopher’s father has problems dealing with his feelings. When his wife left him, he had to keep it all locked inside so that Christopher would not uncover the truth about his mother’s fake death, which resulted in all his emotions being suppressed. People often seek revenge when someone deceives them by harming something or someone that was close to them. Ed seemed to have had his outburst the night he killed Wellington. The fact that the dog was annoying him with his barking and biting and the fact that it was a close possession of Mr. Shears (the man that had wrecked his home and run away with his wife) put a raging thought into Ed’s mind. He killed the dog. All the pressure of trying to raise Christopher nicely without the presence of his wife became too much for Ed. He tried to be a good father and shield Christopher from things in his life that would potentially hurt him, but in the end he just made his relationship with Christopher worse by lying to him. He also shows that he is close to the edge after Christopher talks to Mrs. Alexander and Ed finds out. “What the fuck am I going to do with you Christopher?” he says. This shows that even loving and brave parents can have outbursts in their time.

Judy is a loving, caring woman, but she runs away from things that she cannot deal with. While she was raising Christopher, she could not cope with his disability and felt as if she wasn’t needed in their house hold, like Christopher was better off with just his Father there. She felt as if Christopher was “really different with him, much calmer.” When she realised that she was