Curious Incident

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is told through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy named Christopher Boone. Christopher has a highly-functioning form of autism which allows him to understand complex mathematical problems, but also leaves him unable to comprehend many simple human emotions. His inability to understand metaphors, distinguish emotions, and his lack of imagination makes it possible to consider Christopher as functioning like a computer rather than functioning as a human being. Throughout the story, Christopher is faced with many challenges which he conquers using the stable and never changing system of mathematics. All of these factors suggest that Christopher does, in fact, function like a computer, but it is apparent early in the story that Christopher, regardless of anything else, is capable of independent thought which separates him from the programmed, dependent

world of computers.

The book begins as a mystery novel with a goal of finding the killer of the neighbor's dog, Wellington. The mystery of the dog is solved mid-way through the book, and the story shifts towards the Boone family. We learn through a series of events that Christopher has been lied to the past two years of his life. Christopher's father told him that his mother had died in the hospital. In reality she moved to London to start a new life because she was unable to handle her demanding child. With this discovery, Christopher's world of absolutes is turned upside-down and his faith in his father is destroyed. Christopher, a child that has never traveled alone going any further than his school, leaves his home in order to travel across the country to find his mother who is living in London.

In the comparison between Christopher and a computer the first major similarity is that neither can understand human emotions. For instance, in the death of Christopher's mother, Christopher's father grieves at the loss of his wife. Christopher, on the other hand, acknowledges that his father is upset but is unable to empathize with his father's emotion. Christopher is able to recognize some emotions by the faces that people make, but he does not fully understand many emotions. (pg3)

Contrary to a computer, Christopher can feel emotions. He may not understand why he feels a certain way, but he knows what it feels like to be happy or sad. He recognizes that he felt sad when he found the dead dog (pg2), and he knows that he feels happy when he reads about the Apollo missions. The most important time in the novel that Christopher shows common human emotions is on page 112 when he first finds out that his mother is alive. He is very hurt and betrayed, but he does not know what he is feeling and cannot find a way to handle himself. Although Christopher concedes to having these emotions, he seems to just accept that he has them rather than to understand them.

Christopher cannot grasp the concept of metaphors. He knows the definition and even the origin of the word but does not understand their use and frequency in every day conversation. Instead, Christopher thinks of metaphors as lies. He can only think in terms of the literal meaning of a word. For example, on pg 15, when referring to the phrase "he was the apple of her eye", Christopher can only think of an actual apple in someone's eye as opposed to a phase about 'liking someone or not". In this way, Christopher is very similar to a computer.

A computer can store vast amounts of information and can repeat this information when needed. A computer cannot, however, link