In Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime, Christopher’s quest to find Wellington the dog’s killer leads to more discoveries than he anticipated. He has to learn how to be more independent and faces lies and betrayal. Christopher’s choice to solve Wellington’s murder leads to his evolution as he must mature and evolve when someone he trusted lies to him and he decides he must leave his home. Christopher changes when he decides to solve Wellington’s murder since he must socialize with neighbors and strangers, something way out of his comfort zone.
Because of his mental disability, he’s not very good at having conversations and doesn’t feel comfortable around people and has trouble understanding social cues. He also hates it when people touch or grab him, which leads to him getting arrested for hitting a police officer: “I didn’t like him touching me like this. And this is when I hit him. ” His arrest happened when the police showed up to his neighbor Mrs. Shears’s lawn, the scene of the crime. The police saw him hanging around Wellington’s dead body and asked him what he was doing and if he murdered the dog.
Because of Christopher’s social difficulties, the policeman grabs him and yells at him for not answering the questions quickly. Since Christopher does not enjoy having people touch him, for him, he responds by hitting the police officer, the reason why he gets arrested: “The policeman looked at me for a while without speaking. Then he said, ‘I am arresting you for assaulting a police officer. ‘” Christopher must also talk to neighbors when he goes around asking neighbors if they know who killed Wellington, despite his father telling him to mind his own business.
One of his neighbors, Mrs. Alexander, tells Christopher a secret about his supposedly dead mother, to help him find Wellington’s killer: “And Mrs. Alexander said, ‘Your mother, before she died, was very good friends with Mr. Shears. ‘ And I said, ‘I know. ‘ And she said, ‘No, Christopher, I’m not sure that you do. I mean that they were very good friends. Very, very good friends. ” After finding out that his mother cheated on his father, Christopher eventually tells his dad what he found out. His dad reacts by taking the book he’s writing and hiding it, which leads to Christopher’s next shocking discovery.
After his dad takes his book, Christopher hunts around the house, looking for it. While searching through his father’s room, he eventually finds his book, but hides it again so his father won’t know he’s snooping. As he looks for a place to put the book, he comes across a box with a bunch of letters addressed to him, in his mother’s handwriting. He reads one, and it turns out to be a letter from her to him that she supposedly wrote. Christopher suspects it’s someone pretending to be her, since she’s dead and obviously she can’t send letters, so he sets to find out who really sent it: “I was excited.
When I started writing my book there was only one mystery I had to solve. Now there were two. ” After reading a few more letters, he discovers the sender’s identity: “Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And father had lied about this. ” Christopher feels betrayed by his father because he hates lying; but it’s what his father tells him next that shakes him up the most: “And he said, ‘I killed Wellington, Christopher. ”
His father explains that he did it because after Christopher’s mother left him, Mrs. Shears kept coming over to check up on them and her and his father became good friends, but then they started to argue, and his dad felt like Mrs. Shears cared more about Wellington than she did about him. He tells Christopher about when they were fighting and Mrs. Shears kicked him out of her house, the day he killed the dog: “So when she slams the door behind me the bugger’s waiting for me. Maybe if I’d just given it a kick it would have backed off. [… ]
And all I could think was that she cared more about this bloody dog than she did about you or me. And it was like everything I’d been bottling up for two years just…! By then, Christopher understood that this wasn’t a joke, that his father really had killed Wellington, which made him feel extremely unsafe and helped him make his decision to leave: “I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn’t trust him, even though he had said, ‘Trust me,’ because he had told a lie about a big thing. ” Christopher’s choice to leave his father leads to his next big adventure and changes him. Once Christopher decides that he can’t live with his father anymore, he makes a plan to travel to London all by himself and live with his mother, which scares him.
This journey makes Christopher evolve and mature as he must take public transport without anyone to help him and become more independent, and also shows him what he’s capable of. On this trip, he must go to new places, something a little scary for him, but his determination to get out of Swindon and away from his father keeps him going. After a policeman asks him why he’s at the train station alone and helps him buy a train ticket, he gets on the train, when the same policeman shows up to take him to the police station, where his father awaits: “And he said, ‘So, why are you going to London? And I said, ‘I’m going to live with Mother. ‘ And he said, ‘Well, I think your father might have something to say about that. ” Just as the policeman tells him that, the train takes off, leaving the two stuck on the train. At the next stop, the policeman runs off the train for some mysterious reason, leaving Christopher all by himself. When he exits the train, Christopher buys a map and figures out what he needs to do to get to his mother.
He takes the London Underground alone, which makes him very uncomfortable because so many strangers surrounded him and he begins to feel sick and overwhelmed, but getting away from his father makes him persevere: “And I was shaking and I wanted to be back at home, and then I realized I couldn’t be at home because Father was there and he told a lie and he killed Wellington which meant that it wasn’t my home any more, my home was 4510 Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG and it scared me, having a wrong thought like I wish I was back at home again because it meant my mind wasn’t working properly. When he leaves the tube, he makes his way to his Mother’s house. He tells her why he came and she lets him stay. Eventually, a policeman shows up to the flat, talks to Christopher’s mother and they decide that Christopher could stay with his mother. After a few days of Christopher living there, his mom agrees to take him to Swindon (without Mr. Shears, who she had fought with and left) so he could take his math A level exam.
The two of them stay at Christopher’s father’s place while Christopher takes his exam, making Christopher uncomfortable, and during that time, Mr. Shears drives by and drops of some of his mother’s belongings. Once Christopher finishes his A levels and his mother gets a job, they move into a big house in Swindon together. This journey changes Christopher because not only must he face traveling by himself and maturing, but he must also try to trust his father again after getting betrayed and lied to, which he eventually does.
In conclusion, Christopher’s decision to leave home after his father kills Wellington helps him mature and grow when he has to overcome his father lying to him and tries to trust him again. He also changes and gains confidence by taking public transportation alone, traveling to his mother’s flat and taking (and getting a A on) his math A level exam, because he finds out more of what he’s capable of and can do more than he expected. Christopher’s journey shows that anyone can overcome betrayal and lies and can accomplish something difficult, even if they have a disability.
