The curious accident of the dog in the night time

Materie:	Scheda libro
Categoria:	Inglese
Voto:	1.5 (2)
Download:	195
Data:	25.01.2006
Numero di pagine:	5
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

CHARACTERS
A several number of characters gravitate around Christopher.
Above all Christopher’s father He is the most patient with Ch. , even if his manner is gruff at times. He loves Ch. Unconditionally and that’s why he quickly forbids Ch. to not obey him and to violate his prohibition. The relation father/son is very strong indipendently by Ch.’s mind problems that prevent them to demostrating openly this tie(fingers in a fan as a hug). He’s very calm in his reactions in relation to Ch. particular behavior(red cars=good day, dislike to yellow and brown things...). In spite of all he is very responsable and in genera he is very able in growing up Ch.
On the other side there is Chistopher’s mother. At the beginning, we know that she’s dead but with the evolution of the event we discover that she is still alive but she is gone to London to live with her lover: Mr Shears. In this circumstance she dimostrated her irresponsability prefering her own happiness in spite Ch.’s one. Her pression about being the mother of an autistic boy is understandable but her flight from this situation is unforgivable. She is surely immature and egoist but she loves Ch. very very much but in her own way. She is described by Ch. like “ a small person who smelt nice”
Siobhan is Ch.’s teacher. She is a important positive character that helps Ch. during his adventure. We could define her a sort of Jimmy cricket/know-all.She tries to give Ch. good advices and to encourage him in what he does(writing the book). Ch. trusts Siobhan and he usually listens to her.
There are other three smaller cherachters but equally important:
- Mrs Shears: Ch.’s neighbour, She ‘s really kind, especially the period after Ch.’s mother’s leave. For Ch. she is a very good person also because she loves animals and for him this is a big plus.
- Mr Shears: Mrs Shears’ ex-husband, he is described like a bad person because he hurt Mrs Shears.
- Mrs Alexander: She’s a kind-old woman, very funny and this character is very importante for the development of the history because is she that reveals Cristopher his mother’s affair with Mr Shears.
LANGUAGE
The language is simple and reslistic (FRASE SARA)
The peculiarity of this book is large use of drawings that stresses the chilsish aspect of narrator(Christopher).
The use of times is splitted in two: past verbs are used for the developpment of the history and present verbs are usedin the digressions.
THEMES
In this book there are two main plots: the crime history and the history of Christopher.
The history of Christopher could be divided in several important themes. The main themes are: Christopher’ s autism syndrome, his inward growth and finally the relationship with his parents.
Christopher is a very strange boy, becausehe knows a very great deal about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and he hates that people tells him lies, he hates also the colours yellow and brown, but he likes very much red.
He has this idea of colours because in the morning, going school he can understand if the day will be a Good day or a Bad day, looking the car’s colours.
Christopher is also very irritable and he hayes being touched by people.
With the words “inward growth” i mean that the boy, when he knows that his mother is alive he decided to catch up with her, he starts mature: he won’ t be scared by people and by be touched, for exemple into the bus.
Another important theme is the relationship between Christopher and his parents, expecially his father. When the boy knew that his father was a “killer” he was very scared by him, almost crazy.
TITLE , GENRE, CHAPTERS, DIGRESSIONS
The title of the book “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” explains Christopher’s aim to work out who killed his neighbour’s dog.
Infact Christopher begins writing the book as a “murder mystery novel” because “in a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is and then catch them.It’s a puzzle...sometimes you can work out the answer before the end of the book”.(c.7)
The reason why he wants to find out the killer of the dog is becaouse he thinks dogs’re “faithful and honest and some dogs’re cleverer and more interesting then some people”.(c.7)
But Christopher doesn’t speak only about his investigation, he ofen makes a lot of disgressions writing about:
-his life:family,memories,school(3,37,43...);
-his thoughts and his habits(7,13,19,29,47,53...).
For this reason the book isn’t only a detective story, it’s most of all an educational novel, in which we can read Christopher’s adventure and his growth.
Chapters in this book’re not like other book,given the cardinal number, but Christopher decides to give chapters prime number(2,3,5,7...),because he likes it.
He thinks that “prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. Prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work the roules even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”(c. 19)
Qui ti scrivo un po’ di frasi che ho trovato in internet e che potete inserire in caso vi piacciano:
Unable to understand emotions normally, he finds many everyday events threatening and ordinary activities challenging. To cope he has surrounded himself with rules and rituals — red cars are a good sign, black cars bad; yellow and brown food can't be eaten; and so forth — and has his own coping mechanisms — he relaxes by crouching down and groaning, or by listening to white noise. And he does his best to understand the interactions of the people around him intellectually, helped by his photographic memory and mathematical talent — he's doing A-level mathematics even though he attends a "special needs" school
. Christopher is extremely good at mathematics, seems to have a photographic memory, but does not like novels (other than detective stories, which are about observation and logic), because he cannot empathize with human emotions or make sense of the indirect or figurative. For Christopher, metaphors, like fictions, are lies. He is very fond of dogs, and hates to be touched by people. When a neighbour's dog is killed, he decides to investigate and, with the encouragement of his teacher, to write a book about his investigation.
As a title, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" sounds a little unpromising. Once you get past the mouthful on the cover, though, British writer Mark Haddon's new novel will quickly hook you in. Haddon has written and illustrated children's books, and in this, his first novel for adults, he explores the life and mind of a 15-year-old.
This book, however, is no standard novel of adolescence; instead, Haddon brings together elements from the diverse genres of coming-of-age novel, autobiography and, above all, detective fiction (hence the title, which alludes to Sherlock Holmes-style mysteries) in an unusual and engaging mix.
The protagonist and narrator, Christopher Boone, is utterly logical, mathematically brilliant and totally unable to understand the complex emotional lives of those around him -- in short, he is autistic. Haddon himself has spent time working with autistic people, and his portrayal of Christopher's worldview is deeply sympathetic and insightful.
Christopher is a wonderful fictional creation; a believable, oddly lovable character and a moving education in difference. So powerfully authentic is Christopher's personality and way of seeing that it is the supposedly normal and rational behaviour of the adults around him that comes to seem bizarre. Christopher – because he is incapable of making a statement that is not true – cannot tell a lie.