In this bildungsroman novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon, the author creates the protagonist, also known as Christopher John Francis Boone to encounter many difficult family life situations, which force him to mature throughout the story. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Christopher experiences feelings of betrayal, loss, and fear. Once he has no choice but to face these difficult circumstances, Christopher begins to utilize many stress-related coping strategies, develop confidence in himself, and gain independence in his life. Although Christopher’s struggles still exist at the end of the book, he is responsibly accepting change in his life and developing ways to positively approach complicated situations.
To begin, the book opens with Christopher finding Mrs. Shears's dog, Wellington, dead. This is very tragic to Christopher as he likes dogs and has a close connection with them. When the police are called to the scene and get too close to Christopher, making him feel uncomfortable, he displays his overwhelming feelings by hitting the policeman: “I didn't like him touching me like this. And this is when I hit him” (Haddon 8). This action resulted in Christopher getting taken to the police station and receiving a “caution” from the police. Similarly, Christopher uses this approach to release his emotions another time in the book when he hits his dad. His father is upset about Christopher writing a book about the death of Wellington and yells at him. Christopher admits to the reader, “I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going to hit me or touch me…” (Haddon 4). In a rage, his father grabs Christopher and he, in self-defense, hits his father - twice. Christopher struggles with using his words when he is upset and cannot control his actions. However, nearing the middle of the story, instead of using physical force, Christopher begins to demonstrate some coping strategies that Siobhan has shown him at school. When he is alone at the train station, on the way to see his mother, he tries to calm himself while he walks along the tunnels, saying: “Left, right, left, right, left, right” (Haddon 154). This helps Christopher when he is frightened or angry because it has a rhythm to it. Also while at the train station, Christopher would often bark at people whom he found to be dangerous. This technique still “centered” Christopher out, but at least he realizes that it is better than hitting someone. Finally, Christopher found the train to London a very stressful experience. There were many people within a small space but he managed to handle his anxiety on his own by counting and doing difficult equations in his head: “... I made some of the coefficients large so that they were hard to solve” (Haddon 163). Christopher has grown throughout the story because he is becoming more aware of the coping strategies he uses and attempts to be less noticeable to other people.
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Next, Christopher becomes more adventurous throughout the novel and, in turn, starts to gain more confidence when talking to others. In the beginning, he only went to two places, home and school. At home, he would talk to his father and Toby, his pet rat. When he was at school, Christopher primarily communicated with Siobhan, his teacher. He often describes how difficult it is to communicate with others because he has difficulties reading people’s emotions. However, once Christopher found Wellington dead, he knew the right thing to do was solve the mystery, like Sherlock Holmes. Christopher decides to push himself and talk to his neighbors: “I decided that I would go and ask some of the other people who lived in our street if they had seen anyone killing Wellington” (Haddon 34). This pays off for Christopher because he becomes acquaintances with one of his neighbors, Mrs. Alexander, who helps him later in the story. Christopher transforms from only communicating with his father and teacher, to branching out and slightly conversing with his neighbors, and then finishes the book speaking with strangers. He does often remind himself of “Stranger Danger” (Haddon 34) but realizes that the only way to navigate his way to London is to ask people for help: “... I made the decision that I would have to find out how to get to the train station and I would do this by asking someone” (Haddon 131). Christopher had to use calming techniques and intense concentration to complete this overwhelming task, but even though he exposes himself to the real world, he is successful with his task and he safely arrives in London.
In the same way, Christopher shows throughout the book that he is ready to become more independent. Initially, he depends on his parents for everything. He believes anything they tell him is the truth, including when Christopher’s mother supposedly dies. Christopher does begin to show that he has a mind of his own when he indicates that he is surprised that his mother could have had a heart attack, “Mother was only 38 years old and heart attacks usually happen to older people, and Mother was very active and rode a bike and ate food that was healthy…” (Haddon 27). Not long into the story, we uncover more examples where Christopher begins to stand up for himself: “I decided I was going to find out who killed Wellington even though Father had told me to stay out of other people’s business” (Haddon 28). Additionally, Christopher expresses to the readers his desire to become an astronaut. He thinks he would make a very good astronaut because he is intelligent and he likes to be on his own. Christopher says, “And I would be able to look out of a little window in the spacecraft and know that there was no one else near me for thousands and thousands of miles…” (Haddon 51). This proves that Christopher truly wants to become independent from his family and community. Finally, Christopher is extremely proud that he is the first student from his special needs school to have the ability to take the A-level maths exam and he believes that when he passes the exam, he can get out of his school and head to university: “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” (Haddon 221). Through all the difficult situations Christopher encounters, he finally realizes how independent he can be and how anything is possible.
In conclusion, Christopher matures a great deal throughout the story. He grows from a young boy into an individual who is ready to take on the world. Although he will still have to face many challenges in his daily life, he has built the confidence in himself to be able to handle these situations far better than ever before. He is familiar with many effective coping strategies that will help him to respond more effectively to change and he has earned the right to as much independence as he can manage. Most importantly, Christopher knows that nothing in his life is unachievable.
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