The Curious Incident pages 1-20 Peyton

  1.   Throughout the first 20 pages of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, we are introduced to the main character of the book, given the setting, and given the main conflict of the book. The book opens 7 minutes after midnight as the main character of the novel discovers that his next-door neighbors, Mrs. Shears’ dog has been mysteriously murdered with a garden fork.

The main character of the book is Christopher John Francis Boone. Christopher is a very intelligent, logical, and special fifteen-year old boy.  Christopher’s knowledge proves to be very extensive throughout this section. Within this section, Christopher writes of how he knows all of the countries of the world and their capitals, and every prime number up to 7,057. 

After Christopher's discovery of the dead dog, the dog's owner, Mrs. Sheres, sees Christopher with the dead dog and calls the police. When a policeman arrives to the scene of the crime, he attacks Christopher with a series of question. Christopher becomes overwhelmed with the questions, and reveals that he has a difficult time processing information quickly. Being overwhelmed, Christopher is startled when the police officer touches him, and he hits the police officer. 

After attacking the police officer, Christopher is arrested and taken to a police station, where his father is called to come and pick him up. When his father arrives, he greets Christopher by touching his fingers to Chris' and then the two leave the police station and head home. In the car, Christopher attempts to explain, but his father doesn't want to talk. When they arrive home at 2 in the morning, the two finally discuss what happened. 

2.         My favorite parts of the novel are the parts in which Christopher tells the reader more about himself. He often delves into his world of thought, discussing how he thinks about the world, and how he acts throughout his life.

As the narrator, Christopher also has a very specific way of relaying information. Christopher is a very logical and direct narrator. He is often to the point, stating facts.  He also explains that he is very observant, even explaining why the chapters of the book are only prime numbers. He also explains his preferences of colors. His favorite color is red and his least favorite colors are brown and yellow. With these colors, he even created a system in which if he sees 3 red cars in a row then the day will be super good and if he saw 3 yellow cars the day would be a black day in which he did not talk to anyone.

4.         Christopher has a very specific way of seeing the world. Christopher is very observant and logical. He is a very visual person, determining how the day will go by the color of cars he sees. Christopher is also unique in his way of seeing the world because he cannot imagine what other people are thinking or feeling at any given moment.
            While, I am very different from Christopher in my ways of thought because I can understand what people are thinking or feeling most of the time and Christopher can’t, we are also somewhat similar. We are similar because we both think about the world in terms of numbers, and we are also both very observant. However, while Christopher observes things like the fact that his father puts his pants on before his socks, I notice things like what types of shoes people are wearing and how many people are wearing each type of shoe. Like Christopher, I am also partial to some colors. While almost all people have a favorite color, I use my favorite colors to determine my mood, like Christopher. For example, for my first period class, which is math, my binder is hot pink so that I can feel awake and energetic. However, I definitely do not base my feelings for the day off of the number of colored cars that I see.
5.         Personally, I think that this book would not make a very good movie. I think that this novel would not make a good movie because the majority of the book is told through what Christopher is feeling and thinking in his head. Therefore, if this movie was made into a movie, the majority of the story would need to take place in Christopher’s head and that would not provide a very entertaining experience to the movie viewer.