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Sunday, June 6, 2010

Revision Summary - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Protagonist Chapter 2

The protagonist of a story is the main character, who traditionally, undergoes some sort of change. He or She must usually overcome some opposing force. In this story, the protagonist and main character is the narrator Christopher Boone, who wishes to solve the murder of Wellington and finds another mystery as a result. 

Christopher is undoubtably the protagonist in the story but does his "character" undergo any change or development?  THINK

Read carefully the LAST FIVE paragraphs of Chapter 233 in the book and decide for yourself:

And I went to a bookshop with Mother and I bought a book called Further Maths for A Level and Father told Mrs. Gascoyne that I was going to take A level Further Maths next year and she said, "OK."

And I am going to pass it and get an A grade.  And in two years' time I am going to take A level Physics and get an A grade. 

And then, when I've done that, I am going to go to university in another town.  And it doesn't have to be in London because I don't like London and there are universities in lots of places and not all of them are in big cities.  And I can live in a flat with a garden and a proper toilet.  And I can take Sandy and my books and my computer.

And then I will get a First Class Honours Degree and I will become a scientist. 

And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything. 

HAS CHRISTOPHER CHANGED?  HAS HE DEVELOPED IN HIS CHARACTER? 


Antagonist
The antagonist of a story is the character that provides an obstacle for the protagonist. In this novel, the antagonist is the world removed from his routine: that is, the everyday world of chaos, disorder, absence. The initiator of chaos is the murderer of Wellington, a mystery Christopher chooses to solve. This turns out to be Christopher's father, Ed Boone, who brings further turmoil with his deception regarding the death of Christopher's mother.


Climax
The climax of a story is the major turning point that determines the outcome of the plot. It is the point to which the rising action leads. Sometimes, as in this case, the author will create an explosive and attention grabbing scene for the climax. Christopher discovers his mother isn't dead, as his father claimed, and that he killed Wellington.


Outcome
The outcome is also known as the resolution or denouement, this is the place in the plot where the action is resolved or clarified. The outcome of this novel is unusual. Typically, the protagonist prevails and the antagonist suffers: the good guy wins and the bad guy loses. Christopher goes to London to be with his mother and they return to Swindon, where his father slowly regains the trust of his son.



Christopher discovers that Mrs. Shears’ large black poodle, Wellington was lying in the middle of the lawn in front of her house, with a garden fork sticking out of its body and wonders who did it and why.

Chapter 3
Christopher makes a self-introduction.
Christopher met Siobhan when he was only twelve years old.
Christopher has difficulty pinning down a normal person’s facial expression no matter how hard he tries to match it with a list of drawings of expressions. Normal people change their expressions too quickly for him to understand. So Christopher tells us that when “he doesn’t know what someone is saying he ask them what they mean or he walks away”.

Chapter 5
Mrs. Shears accuses Christopher of “having done something” to Wellington.
Christopher does not like people shouting at him. It makes him scared that they are going to hit him or touch him . He does not know what is going to happen.

Chapter 7
Siobhan encourages Christopher to write something which he would like to read himself. So Christopher decides to write a murder mystery novel.
 
Chapter 11
Christopher is questioned by a policeman concerning Wellington. When the policeman touches him by taking hold of his arm and lifting him up, Christopher hits him.


Christopher struggles to try to understand how to reply to the policeman’s questions. He cannot cope because the policeman is “too quick” with “too many” questions for him because his mind cannot process those questions to match the speed of the policeman.


Christoper’s way of coping is to “roll back onto the lawn and press his forehead to the ground again and groan”. He groans when he tries to cope with too much information coming into his head from outside. It is like listening to loud radio white noise blocking out the sensation from outside to feel “safe”.

Chapter 13
Christopher tells us that he “cannot joke”. He does not understand what a joke is all about. So his book is not going to be funny.
 
Chapter 17
The police officers arrests Christopher and take him away to the police station in their patrol car.
Christopher like the “fact” that the universe is expanding and exploding. There will be nothing to stop people seeing and blinding by all the stars and we will know that the world is coming to an end soon because when they look up into the night sky, there will be no darkness. Except that nobody will see that because there will be nobody left to see it. They will probably burn to death by the falling stars, “even if they live in tunnels”. Christopher seems to savour this mobid idea of annihilation of humankind.

Chapter 19
A prime number is a number that can be divided only by itself and the number one.


THINK: Why do you think Christopher numbers his chapters using prime numbers instead of the usual cardinal numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on?


Is this about discarding conventional rules set by other people and taking control of the situation by insisting on using one’s own set of rules? Is it a personal rebellion? If it is, then a rebellion against who? Against what?

Chapter 23
Christopher is placed under police custody.
Christopher has a dependency crutch on time. Christopher needs his watch with him and refuses to let the prison sergeant have his watch. He tells the police officers that he needs to keep his watch on because he needs to know exactly what time it is. When they try to take it off him, he screams and so they let him keep it on.


Christopher also possesses a “twisted” sense of aesthetics. He writes that it is “nice in the police cell”. He then goes on to provide a description of the cell: It is almost a perfect cube, 2 metres long by 2 metres wide by 2 metres high. It contains approximately 8 cubic metres of air. It has a small window with bars and, on the opposite side, a metal door with a long, thin hatch near the floor for sliding trays of food into the cell and a sliding hatch higher up so that policemen could look in and check that prisoners hadn’t escaped or committed suicide. There was also a padded bench.

Christopher tells us that he thinks that prime numers are “like life”. To him, the prime numbers are “very logical” but we “could never work out the rules, even if we spent all our time thinking about them”.

Chapter 29
Christopher tells us he does not want his name to mean a story of just how “kind and helpful” he is. He simply wants his name to mean him.


Christopher finds people confusing for two reasons – he has difficulty coping with non-verbal communication cues (facial expressions, body language, gestures and so on) and the creative use of figurative language, especially metaphors.


Christopher also expresses his disdain for his own name. He wants his name only to mean only himself, and not “carrying Christ”.

Chapter 31
Father picks Christopher up at the police station after Christopher has been given a caution by the police officer.

Chapter 37
Christopher tells us that he does not tell lies because he cannot tell lies. He does not agree with Mother’s suggestion that he does not lie because he “is a good person”.


Christopher tells us that he does not tell lies not because he is a good person but because he simply cannot tell lies.

In his own logical way of reasoning things, he defines a lie as follows:


“A lie is when you say something happens which does not happen.” What is making him “feel shaky and scared” is that he starts to think about ALL the other things which do not happen.
Christopher does not like proper novels precisely because they are “lies” about things which do not happen and they being “lies” make him feel “shaky and scared”. So he gives us the reassurance that “everything” he has written in his book is “true”. We must know that “true” has many sides. We have the “truth” from Christopher’s side since he is the narrator.


Chapter 41
Christopher wants to continue to find the murderer but Father is upset and insists that he stop doing so.
Christopher states his stance that “dogs are as important as human beings” and so he does not accept his father’s demand that he stops meddling in the investigation of the death of Wellington.

Chapter 43
Christopher tells us that Mother died when he was thirteen years old. He also tells us that Father runs a heating maintenance and boiler repair business. Father told him one afternoon that Mother was hospitalized for heart problem and he did not get to see her again.


Human beings communicate with eye contact. Christopher does not do eye contact. Christopher cannot read people’s minds. So it is not surprising that most conversations of Christopher with others in the book is done with minimal or no eye contact at all. The thing is, the lack of eye contact gives comfort to Christopher.


Christopher only asks his father once, at the beginning when he first hears from his father that his mother is hospitalized: “Can we visit her?” His reason for asking is “because he likes hospitals, uniforms and machines” – all the non-human objects.

Chapter 47
Christopher tells Mr. Jeavons, the school psychologist that he notices that when Father gets up in the morning, he always puts his trousers on before he puts his socks on and it is not logical although it suits Father’s sense of orderliness.


Christopher likes “things to be in a nice order” because he feels “safe”. One way of things being in a nice order was “to be logical”, especially if those things were “numbers or an argument”. So unlike other normal people, he has come up with ways of determining for himself what are “Good Days” and “Black Days”.


Christopher has hoped to be an astronaut but he is realistically aware that he does not have what it takes to become one. However he is hopeful that he can maximize his own potential by going to the university to study Mathematics and/or Physics.


Chapter 53
Father tells Christopher that Mother dies unexpectedly in the hospital of heart attack at 38 years old. Father does not want Christopher to ask any more questions concerning Mother’s death.
Chapter 59
Christopher decides that he is going to investigate into the cause of Wellington’s death regardless of whether Father likes it or not.

Chapter 61
Christopher thinks Mother is being cremated. He also thinks that when Mother dies she does not go to heaven because heaven does not exist. Christopher thinks people believe in heaven because they do not like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they do not like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.



We need to know two terms here:


[1] “Atheism” – the belief that God does not exist.
[2] “Agnosticism” – the belief that people cannot know if God exists”.


Christopher is both an agnostic and a atheist.


Christopher tells us that when his mother dies, she does not go to heaven because “heaven does not exist”. He thinks there is nothing beyond the universe but the black hole which does not hold out any hope or existence for a heaven.


Christopher tells us that people choose to believe in heaven because they do not like the idea of dying and they want to carry on living and they do not want other people taking over their possessions.


Christopher tells us that death is the beginning of the rotting process which returns the human body to the earth.

Chapter 67
Christopher does not like to talk to strangers but he is doing so because he has begun his investigations into the Wellington murder mystery. Christopher tells us that Mr. Shear is his prime suspect.
Christopher does not usually talk to strangers. He does not like talking to strangers because he does not like people he has never met before. He says they are “hard to understand”. He also tells us that it takes him a long time to get used to people he does not know.


Christopher considers himself to be “brave” when he begins approaching his neighbours to begin his investigations. He does not believing in chatting or being laughed at or anything which does not make much sense to him.

Christopher thinks using a “chain of reasoning” and arrives at Mr. Shears being his “prime suspect”.

Chapter 71
Christopher understands only Siobhan’s instructions because she gives her instructions clearly, step by step, so that Christopher can follow. Most importantly, they make sense to him.


Christopher tells us that “all the other children in his school are stupid” except that he is not supposed to label them as such. Christopher wants to prove to his headmistress, Mrs. Gascoyne that he is not stupid by taking A level in Maths despite her skepticism.


Christopher believes that everybody has special needs because we all have our strengths and weaknesses. We all have learning difficulties of one nature or other.


He claims he does not pay attention to any teasing by normal children of his condition because he “does not listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break his bones and he has his Swiss Army Knife if they hit him and if he kills them it will be self-defence and he will not go to prison”.


Christopher is highly motivated to do well in life. He has practical dreams of doing well in school and at work and in life as an adult.

Chapter 73
Christopher reveals to us that he “used to think that Mother and Father might get divorced” because they “had lots of arguments and sometimes they hated each other”. He also confesses for the first time that he “used to have” many “behavioural problems” but now has less because he is more “grown up”.


Christopher lists down some of his behavioural problems:


[A] not talking to people for a long time.
[B] not eating or drinking anything for a long time.
[C] not liking being touched.
[D] Screaming when he is angry or confused.
[E] Not liking being in really small places with other people.
[F] Smashing things when he is angry or confused.
[G] Groaning.
[H] Not liking yellow or brown things and refusing to touch yellow or brown things.
[I] Refusing to use his toothbrush if anyone else has touched it.
[J] Not eating food if different sorts of food are touching each other.
[K] Not noticing that people are angry with him.
[L] Not smiling.
[M] Saying things that other people think are rude.
[N] Doing stupid things.
[O] Hitting other people.
[P] Hating France.
[Q] Driving Mother’s car.
[R] Getting cross when someone has moved the furniture.

Chapter 79
Father is very upset with Christopher for insisting on investigating into the death of Wellington. He wants Christopher to promise him not to going on doing so.

Chapter 83
Christopher tells us that he thinks he will make a very good astronaut.



Christopher does not pretend to hide his intelligence. In fact he tells us so because he says he would make “a very good astronaut” and only if one is intelligent can one consider being a “good astronaut”. But he wants to be an astronaut on his own terms. It has to be a job which fulfils his needs and makes him feel safe.

Chapter 89
Siobhan encourages Christopher, telling him that a short story can also be a successful novel, just like Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.

Chapter 97
Christopher chats with Mrs. Alexandra who lives across the street. She does not realize that Christopher knows nothing about what is going on between Father, Mother and Mr. Shears. She explains to Christopher that “before Mother died”, she was having an affair with Mr. Shears.

Christopher’s conversation with Mrs. Alexander confirms his preference that he likes to be “on his own”.


Christopher does not seem to be bothered by the information offered by Mrs. Alexander that Roger Shears and Judy Boone are lovers. He does not seem to understand the moral implications behind the illicit affair.

Chapter 101
Christopher insists that logical thinking is more powerful at problem-solving than human intuition. He makes it clear that intuition is what most people – the normal people – use in life to make decisions.

Chapter 103
Christopher does not like people to patronize him. Christopher resents Father’s co-worker, Rhodri, “laughing” at him although Ed Boone claims that Rhodri is only trying to be “friendly”. He tells us that Rhodri “laughs at him a lot”.

Christopher reveals to us that Siobhan has been quite an influence on him in how he should be “descriptive” in his writing of his novel about people and things.

Chapter 107
The Hound of the Baskervilles is Christopher’s favourite book. He also likes the book because he likes Sherlock Holmes and he thinks that if he were a proper detective, Sherlock is the kind of detective Christopher would be.

To Christopher, Sherlock is very intelligent and he solves the mystery and he says things like:


The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. [But Sherlock notices them, like Christopher does.]


“Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will.”

Chapter 109
Siobhan asks Christopher if he is upset that Mother and Mr. Shears are having an affair. Christopher says he is not sad.

Chapter 113
Christopher remembers some of the things concerning his dead mother.


Christopher claims he has photographic memory. He can recall any memory on demand without effortlessly. He makes a distinction between himself and the normal people. Other people have pictures in their heads but they are “different” because the picture in Christopher’s head are all pictures of things which really happen. According to Christopher, other people have pictures in their heads of things which are not real and do not happen.

Chapter 127
Father reads the book which Christopher has been hiding secretly and gets very upset with him because Christopher continues investigating into Wellington’s murder case. Christopher hits Father when he chides him for being nosey and grabs his arm.

Christopher professes here again his wish to be alone or be left alone. Instead of being in a spacecraft, now he imagines that he is in a spherical metal submersible with windows that are 30 cm thick to stop them imploding under the pressure. He imagine that he is the only person inside it and that it is not connected to a ship at all but it can operate under its own power and he can control the motors and move anywhere he wants to on the sea bed and he can never be found.

Chapter 131
Christopher explains why he hates yellow and brown colours.

Chapter 137
Father apologizes to Christopher and makes amends by taking him to Twycross Zoo where Christopher tells us about his favourite animals.


Christopher is happy to go visit the Twycross Zoo with father because it is forecast to rain and there will then be less crowds of people. He dislikes crowds and likes rain.


Christopher’s definition and understanding of love is quite different from most people. It goes like this: loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble and looking after them and telling them the truth. Notice that Christopher sees that Father loves him because: Father looks after him when he gets into trouble, like going to the police station to get him and father looks after him by cooking meals for him, and he always tells him the truth. We know the way he “understands” his father’s love for him is quite conditional. He does not have to do anything to love his father back. Christopher is always at the receiving end. He does not give anything back to his father in return.


Because he does not do touching or hugging, when his father holds up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan, Christopher responds by holding up his left hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. Together they make their fingers and thumbs touch each other. We must realize that this is the closest the father can get to his son. We must also understand that this is the closest the son allows himself to be touched by his father.

Chapter 139 
Christopher reiterates here that he “likes” Sherlock Holmes but he does not like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. According to Christopher, that is because Doyle believed in the supernatural.

Chapter 149
Siobhan discovers a bruise on Christopher’s face and he confesses that he has had a fight with Father the previous night.


Chapter 151
Christopher is good at generalizations. He tells us that lots of things are mysteries but that does not mean there isn’t an answer to them. It is just that scientists have not found the answer to it yet.


We can tell here that the way he refers to life problems is as though they can all be treated like scientific problems and scientists are the people who hold the key to unlocking the mysteries to these problems.


Christopher concludes in this chapter that sometimes things are so complicated that it is impossible to predict what they are going to do next, but they are only obeying simple rules. It means that sometimes a whole population of frogs or worms or people can die for no reason whatsoever, just because that is the way the numbers work.


Chapter 157
Father is out attending to customers’ emergency needs. Christopher accidentally finds 43 letters addressed to him by Mother in Father’s shirt box. He discovers that Mother is still alive. Father confesses he has lied.


Christopher feels sick upon discovering his mother’s forty-three letters to him. He discovers also that she is not dead and that his father has been lying to him for the last two years. Because he is so logical in his reasoning, he cannot find an explanation to soothe his nerves. In one of his better descriptions of his inner state of mind, he tells us that he feels giddy. “It is like the room is swinging from side to side, as if it is at the top of a really tall building and the building is swinging backwards and forwards in a strong wind.” He rolls onto the bed and curls up in a ball and his stomach hurt. He then loses his consciousness for a while because “there is a gap in his memory” when he wakes up. He has vomited and has his vomit on him when father comes to find him in the state he is in.


Chapter 163
Before Siobhan, Christopher’s main teacher was Julie.


Christopher downplays the importance of emotions and feelings in normal people. He claims that feelings are just having a picture on the screen in one’s head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry. Christopher does not agee that a person’s mind is not the same as a computer. He claims that both are the same.


Chapter 167
Father confesses that he is the man who killed Wellington. Christopher no longer trusts Father and runs out of the house and hides himself at the back of a shed in the garden of his house.


Father’s sharing of his side of his feelings and his confession for “murdering Wellington” seem to have gone wasted on Christopher. Instead of gaining his son’s sympathy and understanding, Christopher registers him in a new light, branding him a liar and a dangerous man. Christopher decides to escape and he does so immediately after Ed Boone has gone to bed. Christopher does not reflect on what his father has done for him to look after him and so on. Christopher simply tells us that he can no longer live with him in the same house. So he has to escape. His need for personal safety takes precedence over his father’s love for him.


Chapter 173
Christopher writes briefly about the star constellations in the sky.


Chapter 179
Christopher decides he cannot live with Father any more and leaves home in search of
Mother in London, fearful as he is.


Christopher sees Siobhan as a “teacher”, not as a friend or a member of the family.


So he cannot go live with her after he has decided that he cannot no longer live alone with Father in the house.


Christopher decides that he cannot go home again because his father is “dangerous”.


Here is the beginning of a serious of logical reasoning which we see leads Christopher to nowhere. Where Christopher sees solution to his problem of having to find a place to stay, we see only problems. This is because, logic alone simply cannot solve problems. We are humans. So it is no wonder that Mrs. Alexander does not want to look after Toby and Mrs. Shears ignores him totally. Christopher also fails to think of Siobhan as a possible answer to his problem because logic dictates that he treats her only as a teacher, not a friend or a relative.


Chapter 181
Christopher claims that unlike normal people, he makes full use of his mental capacity. He does not like new places because he “sees everything” and processes everything in his mind. But most people are, according to him, “lazy”, they do not see, they merely “glance”, which is the same word for “bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction”.


Christopher says he is good at chess and mathematics and logic because most people are almost “blind” and they do not see most things and there is lots of spare capacity in their heads and it is filled with things which are not connected and are simply silly.


Chapter 191
Christopher gets on the London-bound train.


In the railway station, to get from one spot to another spot, Christopher relies on picturing in his head a big red line across the floor which starts at his feet and goes through the tunnel and he starts waling along the red line, saying “Left, right, left, right, left, right,” because sometimes when he is frightened or angry, it helps if he does something that has a rhythm to do it.


Chapter 193
Christopher needs a timetable to do things. He needs the certainty of the passing of time because he does not want to get lost in it.


Chapter 197
Christopher reiterates his fear of being in confined spaces with lots of people who are strangers to him.


Chapter 199
At 15 years old, Christopher is extremely opinionated about life and God in general. He reiterates here that people believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance. But they should think logically and if they thought logically they would see that they can only ask this question because it has already happened and they exist.


He claims that life on earth comes out of a very special kind of accident requiring three conditions to exist:


[1] Things have to make copies of themselves [REPLICATION]
[2] They have to make small mistakes when they do this [MUTATION]
[3] These mistakes have to be the same in their copies [HERITABILITY]


Christopher tells us that people believe in God think God has put humans on earth because they think human beings are the best animal. To him, we are just animals and will evolve into another animal and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animals.


Chapter 211
Christopher arrives in London but he is lost in the “little station”.
Christopher struggles with information overload when he encounters lots and lots of signs and information at the railway stations. This is because he sees everything. He does not see just the relevant things but takes in everything and has to process everything.


Chapter 223
While lost in London, Christopher recalls what Siobhan has told him about people going on holidays to relax.
Christopher reiterates here that he “likes” Sherlock Holmes but he does not like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. According to Christopher, that is because Doyle believed in the supernatural.

Chapter 227

Christopher arrives at Chapter Road where Mother and Mr. Shears live. Father quarrels with Mother over Christopher. He refuses to go back to Swindon with Father.


Christopher does not seem to understand the adults are arguing and quarrelling over him in Mr. Roger’s London apartment. He simply reports the incident as though he is a spectator. It is as though the anger and accusations flying about him have nothing to do with him. Emotionally, he merely wants to be left alone in the spare room and for Ed Boone to leave and go away. He then simply goes to sleep.


Chapter 229
Christopher dreams that everybody else is dead and he is free to do what he pleases.


Christopher’s sense of morbidity is captured in one of his favourite dreams which he claims to have often dreamt: In THAT dream, nearly everyone on the earth is dead because they have caught a virus. People catches it because of the meaning of something an infected person says and the meaning of what they do with their faces when they say it, which means that people can also get it from watching an infected person on television, which means that it spreads around the world really quickly. When infected, people just sit on the sofa and do nothing and they don’t ear or drink and so they die. In some versions of the same dream, the virus makes them crash their cars or walk into the sea and drown, or jump into rivers. Christopher says this version is better because there aren’t bodies of dead people everywhere. Eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don’t look at other people’s faces and who don’t know what facial expressions mean. The world will become populated with special people like Christopher who like being on their own. Christopher will then be free to go anywhere in the world and he does not need to fear talking to anybody or being touched or having to answer any questions. He is free to do or not to do things. In his dream, human beings, including his parents, are irrelevant and are erased out of his imagination. He is happy when he finishes his dreaming.


Chapter 233
Mother takes Christopher back to school in Swindon to take his A Level Maths examination. Christopher hopes to do university, get a First Class Honours Degree and become a scientist one day.


Despite all the fussing over him by his parents, Christopher thinks only for himself. In the future which he paints for himself, he only talks about how he is going to be successful in his studies and from there, be very good in his job as a scientist. He does not mention anything at all about other people, including his parents.


Father attempts to mend his relationship with Christopher by persuading him to give him time to work things out by spending more time together with each other. Ed Boone presents a golden retriever puppy to Christopher as a token of apology.






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