"Chapters in books are usually given the cardinal numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on. But I have decided to give my chapters prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and so on because I like prime numbers.
     This is how you work out what prime numbers are.
     First you write down all the positive whole numbers in the world. Then you take away all the numbers that are multiples of 2. Then you take away all the numbers that are multiples of 3. Then you take away all the numbers that are multiples of 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and so on. The numbers that are left are the prime numbers.
     The rule for working out prime numbers is really simple, but no one has ever worked out a simple formula for telling you whether a very big number is a prime number or what the next one will be. If a number is really, really big, it can take a computer years to work out whether it is a prime number.
     Prime numbers are useful for writing codes and in America they are classed as Military Material and if you find one over 100 digits long you have to tell the CIA and they buy it off you for $10,000. But it would not be a very good way of making a living.
     Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them" (11-12).

I chose this passage because when I first picked up the book, I was really freaked out about the fact that there was no chapter 1. I spent about 5 minutes flipping through the book to find chapter 1, then resigned myself to the fact that it doesn't exist. This passage makes it pretty clear that Christopher has a very, very different way of thinking about things. Who would think to use prime numbers in order to order something? It would be like starting a worksheet with problem 0. This shows a very unconventional way of thinking about things and a very different sort of logic that goes on in Christopher's head

In A Curious Case of A Dog in The Dog in The Night time by Mark Haddon, the author displays Christopher's in ability to understand human emotions. He is unable to understand normal human practices of courtesy and is extremely blunt in his judgment of what people say and do in times of grief: "And sometimes, when someone has died, like Mother died, people say, "What would you want to say to your mother if she was here now?" or "What would your mother think about that?" Which is stupid because Mother is dead and you can't say anything to people who are dead and dead people can't think." (79) A person who didn't have autism would understand the courtesy aspect, however Christopher is unempathetic and doesn't even understand the concept in his own situation of grief and mourning.

Christophers View

 

 

"I see everything. That is why I don’t like new places. If I am in a place I know, like home, or the bus or the shop, or the street, I have seen almost everything in it before hand and all I have to do is look at the things that have changed or moved. For example, one week the Shakespeare’s Globe had fallen down in the classroom at school and you could tell because it had been put back slightly to the right and their were three little circles of Blu-Tack stain on the wall down the left-hand side of the poster. And the next day someone had graffitied CROW APTOK to lamppost 437 in our street, which is the one outside number 35. But most people are lazy. They never look at everything." (140)

This passage shows that Christopher has a lot of trouble identifying what information he should be paying attention to and what information he should not. Christopher tries to take in every single detail around him and ends up overwhelmed by the amount. This passage also shows that Christopher realizes that his way of taking in information is different that other people’s. Even though Christopher can’t go to many new places because of his way of taking in information, he still thinks that it is better than other people’s way and that everyone else is lazy. Christopher also not only see’s that he is different than other people, but he understands how he is different but does not want to change and is incapable of changing regardless.. 

Man's Best Friend

"I like dogs. You always no what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross, and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk." (Pg. 3-4)
This passage not only says a lot about who Chris views the world, but also how he views people (and yes, dogs). He likes dogs because he knows what they're thinking, which he has trouble doing with people because they make so many different faces and have so many different emotions. Chris goes on to say that dogs are faithful because they can't lie because they can't, which also shows that he doesn't trust people to tell the truth. He fears that because humans can talk, they have the ability to tell a lie they will usually do so.

Daydream

"And when I was asleep I had one of my favorite dreams. Sometimes I have it during the day, but then it's a daydream. But I often have it at night as well" (198).

Living with any learning disability is always difficult and the struggles that certain kids have to deal with is overwhelming. Chris doesn't really enjoy the world he is living in and he is always looking for a way to escape. He can escape by dreaming this dream he repetitively has. Chris dreams about things that he would actually want to happen in real life. He dreams that he is the only one on earth and everyone else catches a virus. I really enjoyed this passage because not only does this passage refer to a physical dream, but it relates to a mental dream that Chris wishes was true. In other words, this dream is like Chris's "perfect world." I think we all have a "perfect world" and Chris's is so unique and shows the audience that he sees the world in such a different way, but not necessarily a strange view. Whenever Chris is feeling anxious, this dream seems to always calm him down and keep him positive/relaxed. 

-Matt G. :)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

"Except I can't remember anything before I was about 4 because I wasn't looking at things in the right way before then, so they didn't get recorded properly" (pg. 77)

 

Because Christopher is a mentally challenged child, he thinks of his mind as a computer; a way for him to organize his thoughts, helping cope with his illness. His mind is very structured, which helps him feel more comfortable and gives him the confidence he needs to understand the sometimes confusing world around him.  I say this because he uses the word “recorded” when a “normal” person would have used the word remembered instead.  In other parts of the novel, he says that he has a map in his mind so he doesn’t get confused with the signs and signals of the world.  Christopher uses a system that only he can understand and it helps him interpret the world in a very unique way.

 

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

“I see everything. That is why I don’t like new places. If I am in a place I know, like home, or school, or the bus, or the shop, or the street, I have seen almost everything in it beforehand and all I have to do is to look at the things that have changed or moved… But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing, which is the same word for bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction, e.g., when a snooker ball glances off another snooker ball.” (p.140)

This passage reveals that Christopher is a very observant boy who is uncomfortable in places where he hasn’t been before. So he takes the time to take special notice to everything around him. Also in this passage Christopher shows how he is different from other people. He says that people usually just glance around without really taking it all in, as opposed to him who will only begin to feel comfortable when he can see everything, and completely observe his surroundings. 

Nick Bridges

“The policeman said, ‘I am going to ask you once again…’ I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning.  I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world.  It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn up so that this is all you can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else.  The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like him me like this. And this is when I hit him. (Haddon 7-8)”

Christopher sees the world in a very black-and-white manner. A situation is viewed as either right, or wrong; no in between.  There are just two examples of how Chris acts when he sees something he does not like.  Christopher does not like it when there are too many thoughts, noises, or people around him.  When something like this occurs, he breaks down and begins to “groan” to block everything else out of his head.  He does this throughout the story often, and it shows if he does not like something that is occurring in the story.  If Christopher does not like something, he is not afraid to act upon it.  Another example of this is when Christopher traveled to London to live with his mom.  There were too many people in the Train Station and he broke down and started to groan for 2 hours.  Another thing that Christopher does not like is when people touch him.  No matter how close or powerful they are, he will hit them or even stab them with his “Swiss Army Knife.”  When anybody touches him throughout the story: the policeman, his father, a stranger in London, he struck all of them.  All of these examples show how Christopher sees the world in simple manner: right or wrong.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

"And at the weekend I make up my own timetable and I write it down on a piece of cardboard and I put it up on the wall. And it says things like Feed Toby or Do maths or Go to the shop to buy sweets. And that is one of the other reasons why I don't like France, because when people are on holiday they don't have a timetable and I had to get mother and Father to tell me every morning exactly what we were going to do that day  to make me feel better" (156).

As an autistic child, Christopher views the world in his own unique way. Christopher functions using timetables everyday and without one he feels completely lost. This shows us that he sees the world as a confusing and messy place to be because you often don't know what to expect. By using a timetable, Christopher is able to schedule his day out and suddenly the world doesn't feel as complicated. Timetables allow him to feel safe and connected to the world in his own way.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

"And sometimes when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting so that   I can remember what I am doing and where I am meant to be going" (Pg. 143-144)

Within the mind of Christopher everything is in a very organized and structured manner according to what makes sense to him. However, with him being a special needs child his way of thinking is a bit different to everyone except himself. He often finds himself thinking in the way of a computer often referring to his mind and memories as previously recorded and or a computer like system. When he is in this way of thinking it often is a mechanism that calms him down quickly instead of making him panic and feel distressed in new or strange places. Due to Christopher's different mentality he is often "shutting down" and then "rebooting" as a way to make sense of things and as a coping mechanism when he finds himself in an unknown situation.

Justin Genga

"Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks. He said that I was clearly a very logical person, so he was surprised that I should think like this because it wasn't very logical. I said that I liked things to be in a nice order. And one way of things being in a nice order was to be logical. Especially if those things were numbers of an argument (p. 24)." 

       I think this passage from the novel reveals something significant about the way Christopher sees around the world because it shows how he likes to do everything in a order. I chose this passage for a couple reasons. First off, it is very out of the ordinary how Christopher bases how his day is going to be by the number and color of cars he sees. For example, later on in the book Christopher sees 4 yellow cars in a row for two days straight, so on the third day he rides the whole bus ride with his eyes closed making sure that he doesn't see 4 yellow cars in a row again. I thinks this is a big impact on how Christopher sees the world around him because when he does see 4 yellow cars in a row, he literally limits himself from doing basically anything that day. This reveals that Christopher loyal to these standards he sets himself too, just to have things in order. When Christopher was trying to figure out who the murderer of the dog was, the color and number of cars he saw resulted in how much closer he was going to get from solving the case. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

And then I couldn't see the sign anymore.  And I had forgotten to remember where it was, and this was frightening because I was lost and because I do not forget things.  And normally I would make a map in my head and I would follow the map and I would be a little cross on the map that showed where I was, but there was too much interference in my head and this had made me confused (139).

Christopher usually makes a map in his head of everywhere he goes and everything he sees- this means that he is very alert and observatory the first time he goes somewhere.  However, since he memorizes this map in his head,  the next time he goes to that place, he will be living life through his mind instead of observing what is happening right in front of him.  This also allows him to panic whenever he is in a new place and doesn't know anything about it- especially if the new place is very busy with lots of signs and images to remember.  In that case, he get very confused and can't locate himself or things he needs.  Christopher expects his vision to be exactly how he remembers it- that way he feels safe.

Welcome!

Welcome to our class blog. This is a place for you to write and think about the texts in a more informal way. It's an opportunity to carry the conversation outside of the classroom and become a little more tech-savvy. 

Now that you've joined the blog, your first assignment is to create your own post in which you: 

Choose a specific passage from the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (no longer than a page) that you think reveals something significant about the way Christopher sees the world around him. Think carefully about Christopher’s vision. Type the passage out in your post and then explain (at least 5 sentences) why you chose the passage and what it reveals about Christopher.