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Chapter 1

Introduction

Literature is a body of written works. The name has been traditionally applied

to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their

authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be

classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin,

historical period, genre and subject matter.

The Eleventh edition of Merriam Webstor’s Collegiate Dictionary considers

literature to be writing having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas

of permanent or universal interest. The Nineteenth Century critic Walter Pater

referred to the matter or imaginative or artistic literature as a transcript, not of mere

fact, but of fact in its infinitely varied forms. But such definition assumes that the

reader already knows what literature is. Deriving from the Latin Littera, a letter of the

alphabet, Literature is first and foremost humankind’s entire body of writing; after

that it is the body of writing belonging to a given language or people; then it its

individual pieces of writing.

Literature is a form of human expression. But was everything expressed in

words even when organized and written down is counted as literature. Those writings

that are primarily informative, technical, scholarly, journalistic would be excluded

from the rank of literature by most critics, certain forms of writing, However, are

universally regarded as belonging to literature as an art. Individual attempts within

these forms are said to succeed if they possess something called Artistic Merit and to

fail if they do not. The nature of artistic merit is less easy to define than to recognize.

The writer need not even pursue it to attain it. On the contrary, a scientific exposition

might be of great literary value and a pedestrian poem of none at all.

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The purest literary form is the lyric poem, and after it comes elegiac, epic,

dramatic, narrative and expository verse. Most theories of literary criticism base

themselves on analysis of poetry, because the aesthetic problems of literature are there

presented in their simplest and purest form. Poetry that fails as literature is not called

poetry at all but verse. Many novels certainly all the world is great novels are

literature, but there are thousands that are not so considered.

The essay was once written deliberately as a piece of literature: its subject

matter was of comparatively minor importance. Today most essays are written as

expository, informative journalism, although there are still essayist in the great

tradition who think of themselves as artists. Now, as in the past, some of the greatest

essayists are critics of literature, drama and the arts.

Some personal documents rank among the world’s greatest literature. Some

examples of this biographical literature were written with posterity in mind, others

with no thought of their being read by anyone but the writer.

English literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes

writers from Scotland, Wales, the crown dependencies and the whole of Ireland as

well as literature in English from countries of the former British Empire including the

United States. Until the early nineteenth century, it only deals with the literature of

the United Kingdom, the crown dependencies and Ireland. It does not include

literature written in the other language of Britain.

The English language has developed over the course of more than 1400years.

The earliest forms of English , an set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great

Britain by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, are called Old English, and has

achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. However,

following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-
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Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy,

French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. The

English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. Geoffrey

Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales was a significant figure in the development

of the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary

languages in England were still French and Latin.

William Shakespeare, a poet and playwright is widely regarded as the greatest

writer in the English language and one of the world greatest dramatist. His plays have

been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than

those of any other playwright.

The English language spread throughout the world with the development of

the British Empire between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. At its

height it was the largest empire in history. During the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries those colonies and the USA started to produce their own significant literary

traditions in English. In the last hundred plus years numerous writers from Great

Britain, both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the USA, and members of

the other former British colonies have received the Nobel Prize for works in the

English language, more than in any other languages.

Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving

literature written in old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the

settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England, in the period after the

settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England. These works include

genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works,

chronicles and riddles.

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Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works

were written to be performed. Epic poems were very popular and some including

Beowulf have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old

English and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in

Scandinavia.

Two Old English poems from the late tenth century are The Wanderer and The

Seafarer. Both have a religious theme and Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer

as an exhortatory and didactic poem in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used

as ametaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the

ninth century, that chronicles the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The poem Battle of

Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the

Battle of Maldon of 1991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a viking

invasion.

British literature is literature from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Anglo-Saxon literature is

included and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature, where

literature in these languages relate to the early development of the English language

and literature. There is also some brief discussion of major figures who wrote in

Scotts, both the main discussion is in the various literature articles.

Literature in the other languages of Britain focuses on the literatures write in

the other languages that are and have been used in Britain. There are also articles on

various literatures: Latin literature in Britain, Anglo-Norman, Cornish, Guernesiais,

Jerriais, Latin, Manx, Scottish, Gaelic, Welsh, etc.

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The nature of British identity has changed over time. The Island that contains

England, Scotland and Walesh as been known as Britain from the time of the Roman

Pliny the Elder. English as the national language had its beginning with the Anglo-

Saxon invasion which started around AD 450. Before that, the inhabitants mainly;

spikes various Celtic languages. The various constituent’s parts of the present United

Kingdom joined at different time. Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England

under the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542. However it was not until 1707, with a

treaty between England and Scotland that the Kingdom of Great Britain come into

existence. This merged in January 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Until fairly recent times Celtic

languages continued to be spoken widely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland and

these languages still survive especially in parts of Wales.

Various Celtic languages were spoken by many British people at that time.

Among the most important written works that have survived are Y Gododdir and The

Mabinogion. From the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, Vikings and Norse settlers

and their descendants colonized part of what is new modern Scotland. Some Old

Norse poetry survives relating to this period, including Orkneyinga Saga, a historical

narrative of the history of the Orkney Irelands, form their capture by the Norwegian

king in the ninth century until about 1200.

Near all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name

from medieval sources, but only for of those are known by their vernacular works

with any certainty: Cadmon, Bede, Alfred the Great and Cynewulf.Cadmon is the

earliest English poet whose name is known. Cadmon’s only known surviving work is

Cadmon’s Hymn, which probably dates from the late seventh century. The poem is

one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is with the runic Ruthwell
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Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest arrested

example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of

sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Roodwas

inscribed upon the Ruth well Cross.

Zadie Smith is an English novelist, essayist and short story writer. He was

born on October twenty five, 1975, London Borough of Brent, United Kingdom. She

has been a tenured Professor in the creative writing faculty of New York University,

since September 2010. She was only twenty four when she made a huge splash in the

literary work with her debut novel, White Teeth, an ambitious and thoughtful novel

about race and the immigrant experience in postcolonial Britain. Her novel White

Teeth won a number of awards. In her subsequent novels and essays frequently

published in The New York Review of Books and TheNew Yorker. Smith has returned

to the themes she explored in her debut novel, creating a compelling and socially

observant tapestry of modern diversity in Britain. Her notable works are White Teeth

(2000), On Beauty (2005), Swing Time (2016), GrandUnion (2019), and NW (2012).

Geoff Dyer is an English writer. He was born on June five, 1958,

Cheltenham, United Kingdom. He studied at Corpus Christi College. He has

authored a number of novels and books of non-fiction which have won literary awards

and been translated into twenty four languages. He received Somerset Maugham

Award, Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Chronically over looked by critics,

Dyer’s prose is equal to anyone writing in English. His notable works are, Out

ofSheer Rage(1997), But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz(1991), Death in Varanasi

(2005), Zona (2012), Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to DoIt(2003),

Otherwise Known as the Human Condition(2011).

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Rachel Cusk is a Canadian-born novelist and writer who lives and works in

England. She was born on February eight 1967, Toronto, Canada. She received

Costa First novel Award, Somerset Maugham Award. Her notable works are Outline

(2014), Transit (2016), Kudos (201`8), Coventry (2019), A Life’s Work (2001),

Aftermath(2012). Following two decades of well-received novels, the author

RachelCusk revolutionized the narrative form of the novel with her Outline Trilogy, a

series of three spare and penetrating books detaining other people’s conversation with

a nearly-nameless narrator. Cusk creates an utterly unique and thought-provoking

reading experience that masterfully melts form and content and explores the messy

ways we tell and reconstruct our stories.

Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He was born on January nineteen,

1946, Leicester, United Kingdom. He received Booker PrizeSomerset Maugham

Award. He won the Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of anEnding and three

of his earlier books had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written

crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. He was one of Britain’s most

accomplished writers. Before winning the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his novel The

Sense of an Ending, Barnes had previously been shortlisted for the prestigious prize

three times: Flaubert’s Parrot(1984), England, England(1988), and Arthur and

George(2005). A wickedly intelligent writer known for his elegant prose, Barnes’

novels explore themes of memory, identity and choice. His notable works are The

Sense of an Ending(2011), The Only Story(2018), The Noise of Time(2016), A History

of the World in 10 ½ Chapters(1989).

Patricia Mary W. Barker is an English writer and novelist. She was born on

May eight 1943, Thornaby, United Kingdom. She received Booker Prize, Guardian

Fiction Prize. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centerson themes of
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memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and

plainspoken. She is best-known for her Regeneration Trilogy. Regarded as a triumph

of late twentieth century, British fiction the Regeneration Trilogy is an award-winning

series of intense and closely observed novel about the aftermate of WWI on the

personal lives of British citizens. Masterfully using spare and evocative prose,

Barker’s quietly epic historical novels create a moving and harrowing depiction of

memory, trauma and the journey of recovery. Her notable works are The Silence of

the Girls(2018), The Ghost Road(1995), The Eye in the Door(1993), LifeClass(2007),

and Double Vision(2003).

Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She was born on July twenty one

1966,Neyland, United Kingdom. She is best known forher novels set in Victorian

Society and featuring lesbian protagonists such as Tipping the Velvet and Finger

smith. She received Lambda Literary for Lesbian Fiction, Betty Trask Award. She

was educated at Milford Haven School, Lancaster University and the University of

Kent. Frequently shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize, her novels are characterized

by moving and authentic depictions of intimacy between people set against, the

backdrop of historical, political and social forces. Her notable works are, Finger

Smith (2002), Tripping Velvet(1998), The Night Watch(2006), The

PlayingGuests(2014), and The Little Stranger(2009).

David James Stuart Mitchell is a British comedian, actor, writer and television

presenter who currently works for the BBC as a team captain on the television series.

He was born on July fourteen 1974 Salisbury, United Kingdom. His best-known

work,Cloud Atlasis made up of six interconnected stories; while his debut

Ghostwritten is comprised of nine narrators. In spite of these narrative hijinks,

Mitchell has enjoyed both mainstream and critical success, creating diverse narrative
 9

tableaux that he peoples with thrilling character studies. His notable works are Cloud

Atlas (2004), The Bone Clocks (2014), The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet

(2010), Black Swan Green (2006) and Number 9 Dream (2001).

Mark Haddon was born on October twenty eight 1962 in Northampton,

Notrhamptonshire, England. He was a writer and illustrator. He is an English

novelist best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time(2003). He

was educated at Uppingham School and Merton College, Oxford where he studied

English. In 1984, he completed an MA in English literature at the University of

Edinburgh. Since Haddon wrote his first Children’s book, Gilbert’s Gobstopper in

1987. This was followed by many other Children’s books which were often self-

illustrated.

Haddon is also known for his series of Agent Z books, one of which, Agent Z

and the Penguin from Mars was made into a 1996 Children’s BBC’s sitcom. He also

write the screenplay for the BBC television adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ story

Fungus the Bogeyman screened on BBC in 2004. In 2007, he wrote the BBC

television drama Coming Down the Mountain.

In 2003, Haddon won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in the novels

rather than Children’s Books category for The Curious Incident of the Dog inthe

Night Time. He also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Best First Book

Category, as The Curious Incident was considered his first written for adults yet he

also won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize , and in 2003, he also received Man

Booker Prize. His short story, The Pier Fallswas longlisted for the 2015 Sunday

Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the richest prize in the world for a single

short story.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is written from the

perspective of a fifteen year oldboy with Asperger Syndrome, Christopher John

Francis Boone. Haddon claimed that this was the first book that he writes

intentionally of an adult audience. His second adult novel, A Spot of Botherwas

published in September 2006.

Christopher John Francis Boone is a fifteen-year-old boy who is implied to be

on the autism spectrum who lives with his father, Ed. He explains in his narration that

his mother, Judy died two years ago. The boy discovers the dead body of the

neighbor’s dog, Wellington, speared by a garden fork. Mrs. Shears the dog’s owner

calls the police and Christopher comes under suspicion. When a policeman touches

him, Christopher is uncomfortable with being touched and hits the policeman. He is

arrested and then released with a police caution. He decides to investigate the dog’s

death despite his father’s orders to stay out of other people’s business. He is severely

limited by his fears and difficulties when interpreting the world around him.

Throughout his adventures Christopher records his experience in a book which he

calls a murder mystery novel. During his investigation, Christopher meets people

whom he has never before encountered even though they live on the same street

including the elderly Mrs. Alexander, who informs Christopher that his mother had an

affair with Mr. Shears and had been with him for a longtime.

Ed discovers the book and confiscates it after a brief argument with the boy.

While searching for the confiscated book Christopher uncovers a trove of letters,

which his mother wrote to him dated after her supposed death which his father was

also hidden. He is so shocked by his father lying about his mother’s death that he is

unable to move curl upon on the bed vomits and groans for several hours until his

father returns home. Ed realizes that Christopher has read the letters and cleans him
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up. He then confesses that he had indeed lied about Judy’s death; he also admits that

he was the one who had killed Wellington, stating that it was a mistake resulting from

his anger after a heated argument with Mrs. Shears. Christopher having lost all trust

in his father and convinced that his father might try to lives with his mother. He

remembers his mother’s address from the letters and embarks on an adventurous trip

to London, where his mother live with Mr. Shears.

After long and event-filled journey, evading policeman and feeling ill from the

overwhelmingly large amount of information and stimulate from the trains and

crowds around him he finally finds his way to the home of his mother and Mr. Shears

and waits outside until they arrive. Judy is delighted that Christopher has come to

her;She is upset that Ed told Christopher that she was dead. Mr. Shears did not want

Christopher living with them and never did. Very soon, after arriving, Christopher

wants to return to Swindon in order to take his mathematics A-level. His mother

leaves Mr. Shears their relationship having broken down because of the rejection of

Christopher by Mr. Shears. Judy then moves into arented room in Swindon. After an

argument with Ed, she agrees to let him meet Christopher of daily brief visits.

Christopher remains terrified of his father and makes repeated attempts to prevent him

from talking. He hopes Ed will be imprisoned for killing dog Wellington, although

his mother explains that for this to happen, Mrs. shears would have to press charges.

The story ends with Ed getting Christopher a Golden Retriever puppy who

Christopher gets to name and promising that he will rebuild trust with Christopher

slowly. Christopher asserts that he will take further A-level exam and attend

University. He completes his mathematics A-level with top grades despite having

eaten and slept very little. Earlier in the story, he talks about wanting to become an

astronaut but at to end he declares that his goal is to become a scientist. The book
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ends with Christopher optimistic about his future having solved the mystery of the

murdered dog gone to London on his own found his mother written a book about his

adventures, and achieved an A in his A-level mathematics exam.

The present project maker an attempt to analyze and examine the

conceptualization of Disability in Mark Haddon’s The curious Incident of the Dog in

the Night time. It is divided into five chapters.

The first chapter ‘Introduction’ gives an overview of literature and British

literature a brief account of the life and works of Make Haddon and a short summary

of the novel

The second chapter ‘Autism’ with a highly functioning form of autism as seen

in the novel

The third chapter ‘Logic vs Emotion’ deals with the logical mind and

emotional behavior through the character of Christopher John Francis Boone.

The fourth chapter ‘Social Disorder’ deals with Christopher’s unique narrative

style, strange behaviors and brilliant mind this chapter also deals with the unusual

behavior and the problems of Christopher.

The fifth chapter ‘Summation’ sums up the arguments of the earlier chapters.

This Dissertation based on the methodology advocated in the eight edition of

MLA Handbook for writer of research papers.

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Chapter 2

Autism

Autism is a brain disorder usually diagnosed in children younger than three.

People with autism typically have problems with social interaction and

communication and changes in routine can often be upsetting for them. Repetitive

preoccupations and obsessive intrest in languages, numbers and symbols are

characterized a person with autism. At this time the cause of autism is unknown

though many experts believe it to be a genetic based disorder that occurs before birth.

Aspher syndrome is a form of autism first noticed in 1944 by Hans Asperger a

German Doctor. According to Barbara L. Kirby, people with Aspher syndrome have a

great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues and very often the individual with

Aspher syndrome has difficulty determining proper body space. Often overly

sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells and sights. The person with Aspher syndrome may

prefer soft clothing certain foods and be bothered by sounds or light no one else

seems to hear or see.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke explains children

with Aspher syndrome want to known about their topic of intrest and their

conversations with others will be about little else. Their expertise, high level of

vocabulary and formal speech patterns make them seem like little professors. Other

characteristics of Aspher syndrome include repetitive routines or rituals, peculiarities

in speech and language socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior and the

inability to interact successfully with peers, peers with non verbal communication and

clumsy and uncoordinated motor movements.

Many people that suffer from autism have trouble with isolation. They trouble

with isolation because they are always isolated whether it be at school or work place
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or even at home. Having autism has many unmanageable flaws to it. For example

people with aspersers prefer being on their own and not surrounded by people.

Another reason why people with autism are so isolated is because their brain cannot

process a joke small talk or sarcasm well at all. People can autism cannot help that

they still cannot which make people not want to hangout with them a lot. They have

autism are almost always on their own. They are usually alone in the hallways

wandering around and being quiet as a mouse. They seem like they prefer to be alone.

They could be many reasons why people with autism are isolated. Reasons are usually

a bad experience in a social situation in the past may have been generalized and the

person with autism is now trying to avoid a repetition of this negative experience they

personally just enjoy being alone with nobody else with them lack skills to properly

socially interact or don’t have a sufficient amount of people who are willing to stay

connected with them.

A fifteen year old boy Christopher John Francis Boone is a protagonist of the

novel The curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time. Christopher Boone has a

particular form of autism called Aspher Syndrome. His obsession with detail,

mathematics, colors and astronomy as well as his unwavering attention to routine and

violent aversion to socialization all reflect his condition though it is unnamed in the

novel. Christopher Struggles with aspersers, so he faces many different kind of

isolation and loneliness. Isolation is a process or fact of isolation or being isolated.

Being isolated means far away from other places, building or people.

Isolation is externally common in those who suffer from mental health

problems. Abraham Lincoln says Bettor to remain silent and be though a fool than to

speak out and remove all doubt. Psychologists find that human beings have a

fundamental need to be included in groups and close relationship. Humans are really
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social animals. A lack of close friends and social life can lead to emotional discomfort

and loneliness. It is seen in Shakespeare plays too. For example Macbeth’s isolation

in Act 5, Scene 3, in the soliloquy in which he reflects on his situation.

Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.

I have lived long enough: my way of life.

Is fall’s into the seas, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old ago,

As honors, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not; look to have; but in their steed,

Curses, not loud but deep, macth-honour brouth,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. (mac 73-74)

Mark Hadden suggests that isolation beneficial to a personal mental state.

Mark Hadden demonstrates their point through Christopher Boone’s reaction to the

murder of wellington and Ed Boone’s reaction to Christopher’s discovery of his

mother’s letters. Christopher’s reaction to the murder of wellington demonstrates the

benefits of isolation. Christopher is faced with the challenge of batting his autism and

the repercussions that come along with the mental illness. Christopher due to the fact

he is autism filters information much differently than most and react quite illogically

to shocking news. Throughout the story Christopher is faced with countless incidents

in which he responds quite oddly. Christopher is not liking being around strangers and

he gets scared when confronted or just out in public with strangers. There was one

specific part in the story where Christopher is confronted by a police officer at a crime

scene and as soon the officer laid his hand on Christopher he got very uncomfortable

and hit the police officer. Christopher says, “The Policeman took hold of my arm and
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lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like him touching me like this. And this is when I hit

him”. (8-9)

Christopher does not being around people does not enjoy talking and

absolutely hates being touched. He always love loneliness. In Francis Bacon’s Of

Friendship, Bacon remarks that “the person who claim that whoever delights in

solitude must be either a god or a wild beast. But there is not real solitude just because

they are not in the company of others” (20). Christopher has to undergo many

situations in the novel in which affect him physically but more so mentally. He has a

habit of walking during the night time alone.

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying in the grass in the

middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’ house. Its it was running on

its side, the way dogs run when they think they are charring a cat in

dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. But the dog was dead

(1).

This scene shows the loneliness of Christopher. When Christopher discovers

Wellington has been murdered instead of leaving the case for the police to deal with

Christopher decides to take on himself. By doing so Christopher putting a lot of his

time and effort into finding out who killed wellington result in him getting in trouble

from the police who follow by Christopher’s father getting mad because after all he is

the one who killed wellington. Basically by Christopher taking on this task many

people around him start to get upset which most importantly loads him becoming

further isolated from the rest of the world. When Christopher experience with death

force him into being along therefore leading to his social isolation. Christopher’s self-

imposed isolation is only reinforced by his classmates.

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Christopher experience with death, mental illness and their journeys to

independence all lead to social isolation. Christopher’s mother death lead him to

isolation. To illustrate Christopher comes home from school one day and nobody is

home which is unusual. When his father gets home he then says to Christopher that

his mother is in the hospital and later goes on to say his mother was died. Christopher

says, “Father said that she died of a heart attack and it wasn’t expected” (36).

Christopher apparently loses his mother on facts based on what his father is telling

him. In the novel begins Christopher says “Mother died 2 Years ago” (28). Just before

her death Christopher’s father would not allow Christopher to see his own mother

while apparently sick, which is very suspicious. His father said that his mother died of

heart attack. Christopher is very shocked. Usually heart attack happens to older

people. Christopher’s other is only thirty eight years old. He express

Mother was only 38 years old and heart attacks usually happens to

older people, and mother was very active and rode a bicycle and ate

food which was healthy and high in fibre and low in saturated fat like

chicken and vegetables and muesli. (36)

In J.D Salinger’s The catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden is a sixteen

year old boy. Holden experiences with the death of his younger brother Allie leads to

his social isolation. Holden bottles in all his emotions and does not socialize with

others. He feels a sense of loneliness and emptiness. Holden adored his little brother

and would do anything for his brother. For example the night Allies dies Holden

sleeps in the garage all night he has a mental breakdown and destroys the entire God

dam with his fist.

I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the god dam

windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the
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windows on the station wagon we had that summer but my hand was

already broken but I didn’t even know I was doing it. (Salinger 38-39)

Christopher’s mother death leads him to social isolation. But later in the novel

it is discovered that Christopher’s mother was in fact not in the hospital but ran off to

London with Mr. Shears their neighbor. The lies Christopher father tells in what

causes Christopher to become socially isolated. George Eliot’s famous novel Silas

Marner. In this novel loneliness is seem in different forms throughout the novel

mainly shown through Godfrey and silas. Eliot Shows us the reason for Silas isolation

in Raveloe at the beginning of the novel after he was exciled From lanteen Yard. silas

is socially isolated in the novel. He feels betrayed by God and people. “There were

the calls of hunger; and silas in his solitude had to prove his own breakfast, dinner and

supper to fetch his own water from the well, and put his own kettle on the fibre”.

(Eliot 1.2.3)

Christopher though that his life is so empty and unless and he is so lonely that

he would rather be dead. Christopher faced with situations involving death involving

death that accentuates his emotional behavior in a way that pushes him in to social

isolation. There emotional behaviors or break downs are due to the fact Christopher

have mental illnesses. Christopher’s mental illness provides his social isolation.

Christopher autism is a trouble when communicating which ends up in social isolation

from peers. He also cannot socialize with strangers. Christopher says that “but she

was a stranger, so I said, ‘stand further away’ because I didn’t like her being so close”

(226). He does not thank like a normal person. For example when Christopher is

introducing himself at the beginning of the novel, “My name is Christopher John

Francis Boone. I know all the counters of the world and their capital cities and every
 19

prime number up to 7,507” (2). He takes great detail from everything and has an

amazing memory.

Christopher didn’t mingle with others especially strangers. Christopher cannot

communicate with very well and get nervous when stranger approach him or talk to

him. He doesn’t like to talk stranger and is on edge whenever he is in public. “And a

man came up to me and he was wearing a blue jacket and blue trousers and he was

brown shoes he was carrying a book in his hand and he said, ‘You look lost’. So I

took out of my swiss Army knife” (210). Christopher is isolated for most of the novel

but the difference is that he has autism and do not like to be in the company of people.

He believes there going to touch him inappropriately. “There were losts of people on

the train, and I didn’t like that, because I don’t like of people”. (196). The beginning

of the novel Christopher arrested by a police officer and he were imprisoned. In this

situation Christopher says, “It was nice in the police cell” (17). This line shows the

loneliness of Christopher.

Every people hate the police cell and they didn’t like it. But Christopher is like

the cell and he is satisfied with that. Because in the police cell is alone, no one come

or accompany with him. Christopher talks about his situations when he does not like

to around people.

I know that it meant ‘happy’ take when I’m leading about the Apollo

space missions, or when I am still awake at three or four in the

morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am

the only person in the whole world. (2)

Christopher reads about space missions due to fact space is so far away there

is no people and the thoughts of being in space gives Christopher a seme of isolation

which he enjoy Christopher autism forces him into a state in which he is isolated due
 20

to the fact he cannot communicate correctly posses mental illnesses in which pusher

them away from family and peers due to the lack of communication.

Christopher autism leads to social isolation from society and the people

around them on their journey to independence. Christopher journey to independence

leads to isolation. Christopher discovers old letters written by his mother which makes

him sick due to the fact Christopher thinks his mother is dead. Christopher says “Then

I shopped reading the letter because I felt sick” (141). Christopher independently

discovers that mother is alive and living in London with Mr. Shears. This makes

Christopher stuck in his room sick isolated from rest of the world. When

Christopher’s journey to independence brings isolation due to the fact he discovers his

mother is similar in the seme that he too become isolated questioning his trues self.

Christopher has plenty of emotions he hates being hugged, he hates it when two

different kinds of food on his plate he hates the colors brown and yellow. When his

father come to police station Christopher and his father made their fingers and thumbs

touch each other. He hates his father too hugged him. Christopher has some

behavioral problems.

There are some of my behavioral problems.

A. Not talking to people for a long time.

B. Not eating or drinking anything for a long time.

H. Not liking yellow things or brown things and refusing yellow things

or brown things. (59)

This scene shows Christopher’s affectless of autism. So he don’t like others

tough him and not talking to people for a long time. In the following quotation

Christopher narrator his daily schedule and says their when he sees his kitchen

“Sometimes when I want to be on my own I get into airing cupboard in the bathroom
 21

and slide in beside the boiler and pull the door behind me and sit there and think for

hours and it makes me very calm” (23).

About these lines he is starting that he enjoy being along because it enable him

to think. When Christopher thinks he can organize all the events and thoughts that are

in his mind and it relieves stress for him. Christopher’s isolation from the rest of the

world in the cupboard is beneficial because it helped him relax he just crams himself

into the smallest space. He can fit into and hangs out there for a few hours. Isolation is

very helpful when it comes to relaxation and additionally it is capable of making

people happy. But at the same time he is deeply connected to the world around him.

Christopher’s isolation is pretty extreme. Understands things that few of us

could dream of grasping and notice his surroundings is more details than we could

ever imagine. So in a way he is more isolated. In Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain the

main characters Iman and Ada feels Isolation and loneliness. Like Iman and Ada,

many of the characters in the novel experience isolation and loneliness. Iman is in

hospital he experiences loneliness. He read books to wipe out his loneliness. Though

Ada tries to come out from her loneliness and isolation, the specks of the isolation and

loneliness often come to her mind.

Ada left the porch and walked down past the barn into the pasture.

The sun was long gone below the ridgelines, the light falling fast The

mountains stood grey in the dusk, as pale and insubstantial as breath

blown on glass. The place seemed inhabited by a great force of

loneliness. (Frazier 112)

Christopher Boone speak to his instructor Siobhan about the emotion happy he

identifies the emotion with difference scenarios including him walking on the street at

three in the morning and being alone. Ed Boone come home to discover Christopher
 22

in his bedroom reading letters for his mom. Ed hides there letters from Christopher

because he told Christopher that his mom had died in the hospital and did not know

how to tell him. Ed did not tell Christopher about these letters he isolated himself with

his ex-wife and Christopher. This isolation his helped him decide that he made the

wrong decision when he lied to Christopher. Christopher shows his real identity and

brings his mother and father close together after fighting many years.

Most of the characters in this novel experience isolation and loneliness

especially Christopher. Throughout the novel Christopher feels isolation and

loneliness because of his mental illness autism. Because of his autism he like to be

alone. Not only Christopher his father, Mrs Shears, Mrs Alexander, Siobhan, Rhodri

experiences isolation and loneliness. After the elopement of his wife Judy, Ed Boone

feels isolation. Mrs. Shears feels loneliness his husband leave her and live with Judy.

Mrs. Alexander, Siobhan, Rhodri also have no families. Mrs. Alexander spent time

with Ed Boone. Wordsworth found a bliss to recollect the beauty of nature in his mind

when he is in solitude and wrote his famous poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

Like, Christopher in his Solitude he practice for his mathematics A – level and he

expects to get an A grade. Finally he get an A grade for his mathematics.

 23

Chapter 3

Logic vs Emotion

Logic is the study of correct reason especially regarding making inferences

used in other disciplines like math and computer science. While the definition sounds

simple enough understanding logic is a little more complex. Logic an include the act

of reasoning by humans in order to form thoughts and opinion as well as

classifications and judgement. Some forms of logic can be performed by computers

and even animals.

“The study of truths bases completely on the meanings of the terms

they contain”.

Logic is a process of making a conclusion and a took you can use. Logic is a

branch of philosophy. There are different schools of thought on logic in philosophy

but the typical version is called classical elementary logic or classical first order logic.

In this discipline philosophers try to distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning.

Historically logic can be studied in philosophy and mathematics. More recently logic

has been studied in cognitive science which draws on computer science, linguistic

philosophy and psychology among other discipline. A logician is any person often a

philosopher or mathematician whose topic of scholarly study in logic.

Emotions create movement and action. They generate energy during the

presentation and get prospects to act on the proposal being presented. Logic plays the

role of creating a foundation for emotions. Emotion defined as the intensity of how

the body and mind responds to an event. Events are wrapped in emotions. The study

found that emotions are designed to protect us leading us toward sources of need or

away from areas of danger. Emotions are the basic mechanism for making decision.

Emotions are psychological states associated with the nervous system brought on by
 24

neuro physiological changes variously related to thoughts, feelings, behavioral

responses and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.

Being emotional can correlate of various elements. If you are approaching a

situation from an emotional state it can hinder your understanding of the opposing

side or even deflate your intelligence due to lack of logic. Emotions are caused by a

signal coming from your heart to your brain reflecting on emotion is hardly ever good

thing. Logic and emotion could be called the turn engines of persuasion and influence

persuaders know that each audience and individual has a different balance between

logic and emotion. In most persuasive situations people react based on emotions then

justify their actions with logic and fact. A message that is completely based on

emotion will often set off alarm bells on the logical side. On the other hand a logical

message with no appeal to emotion doesn’t create a strong enough response in the

audience. An effective persuader will create a proper balance between logic and

emotion in order to create a perfect persuasive message.

Whereas logic is the language of the conscious mind emotion is the language

of the unconscious mind. Emotions are reactions to perceived and imagined stimuli

not based on logic but no one’s own personal experiences. Emotions often outweigh

our logic. When you are persuading someone emotions provide the spring board for a

successful execution of your argument. Emotions are the energy and very fuel of the

persuasion process. Without trapping into your audience’s emotions there is no

strength or energy in your message. Emotion is a power you can harness and use in

practically every aspect of persuasion. Logic is important but emotion helps you

catapult an otherwise dull or flat exchange to the next level.

Christopher struggles to understand his emotions and the emotional worlds of

others his world view and means of expression rely almost entirely on logic.
 25

Christopher’s logic based perspective both helps and hinders him in his murder

investigation logic helps Christopher analyze his observations and draw reasonable

conclusion like the fact that Wellington was probably killed by someone who knew

him and whoever killed Wellington had a personal grievance with Mrs. Shears which

turns out to be incredibly true. Furthermore Christopher is gifted in mathematics and

physics and he believes these proficiencies will create opportunities for him in the

future such as attending university and becoming a scientist.

The challenges that come with Christopher’s extreme dependence on logic are

evident when he processer difficult information for instance who his father tells

Christopher that his mother died of a heart attack the only emotion Christopher

reports I surprise. “mother was only 38 years old and heart attacks usually happen to

older people”(36). So he ask his father what kind of heart attack she had in this

extremely logical response there exists a noticeable lack of what society would

consider normal emotional reactions such as sadness and anger and the effect is eerie

and disconcerting to the reader as well as to Christopher’s father who simply remarks

it is not “the moment to be asking questions like that” (25).

In Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman asserts that understanding

emotions is more pertinent to leading a successful life than having a high intelligence.

Often people of high IQ struggle at work because of their weaknesses in fundamental

human relation skills. Goleman calls this skill emotional intelligence. He emphasizes

that emotional intelligence largely determines our success in relationship, work and

even physical wellness. Emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that

involve the ability to monitor one’s own and others emotions, to discriminate among

them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions. (Goleman 7)
 26

Nevertheless Christopher’s logical approach life also provides an interesting

contrast to his parents who often behave impulsively and irrationally according to

which ever emotional they experience in the movement. Although Christopher did

not have the appropriate response to the news of his mother’s death he would also

never become so angry at someone that he would stab their dog with a garden fork.

Logic is the reasoning assessed on the principles of validity. Emotion is the

intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning. The rule of balance defines the way

an individual’s morals bristle with prejudice evaluating their motivation by pride and

vanity in the discovering to reach new insight involving logic and one’s plight of

present perception Christopher who is probably on the autism spectrum struggles in

interactions that depend on emotion or personality Christopher best under stands

situations that he can explain logically rather than emotionally.

Typically people with Aspher Syndrome have an impaired imagination and are

emotionally and socially challenged. For example Christopher approaches emotional

situations in a very logical way and analyses them without imagination and without

emotional import. He admits that he finds people confusing because they are often

ambiguous and complex. In contrast he likes dogs because dog did not tell a lie.

And on a basic level Christopher’s disability limits his understanding of

himself. He knows what makes him secure and what terrifies him. For example he

has a phobia of certain colors. He refused to eat or touch anything that is yellow or

brown. Haddon explains that “Christopher copes best with situations and experiences

when things are orderly (32)…

For instance Christopher has a very rigid time table. Subjects such as math

and science follow an explicit order and Christopher enjoys discussing mathematical
 27

concepts such as prime numbers. He explores, I think prime numbers are like life.

They are rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them (15).

Prime numbers follow an order that Christopher pleasing and satisfying. In

order that Christopher prefers prime number so much that he user them to order the

chapters of the book. As he explains here logic and order equal the basis of life he

might not be able to work out all the rules of life but he believes they exist.

Christopher’s strong identification with logic colors the way he views life.

Christopher’s grandmother also her “pictures in her head” but unlike Christopher’s

pictures are all confused, like someone has muddled the film up and she can’t tell

what happened in what order, so she thinks that dead people are still alive”(99).

Christopher lacks spontaneity and copes best with situations and experiences when

things are orderly and predictable. If a situation appears chaotic he needs to simplify

and rework it from a logical and familiar perspective.

In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr the logic is the key theme of

the novel. Early in the novel, Marie Laure’s locksmith father believes in logic.

“Walk the paths of logic. Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its

solution. Every lock its key” (Doerr 37). Such a reductive approaches helps to

overcome Christopher’s anxiety which surfaces when he suffers from sensory

overload. In such cases he prefers to think sequentially and logically. He events

noises such as groaning “when there is too much information coming into my head

from the outside world”(8).

Christopher is emotionally challenged and had difficulty understanding

emotional complexity. He interprets gestures and comments very literally. He fails to

understand emotional nuances and the sensitivities of human interaction. He believes

that imagining an apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have anything to do with liking
 28

someone a lot. In the same way he takes stranger danger taught to children during

primary schooling very literally and applies it on the old lady Mrs. Alexander saying

that I am not allowed to talk you” (67). Mrs. Alexander delivers the truth of about his

mother his mind is think logically. As he express “and this shows that intuition is

what people use in life to make decisions. But logical can help you work the right

answer (124).

After Mrs. Alexander delvers the news about his mother Christopher

immediately digress into an anecdote about the money hall problem a conceptual

puzzle that reveals, the error inhuman intuition. Sometimes human intuition can lead

one to incorrect conclusion. For Christopher logic numbers always trump human

intuition. The fact that Christopher follows his discussion with Mrs. Alexander with

this he himself has been a victim of his own intuition. Since he was wrong about his

mother. Christopher’s logical mind cannot immediately interpret things that do not

overtly make sense such as idioms. When people make colloquial statements that at

first seem nonsensical Christopher explains that he relies on matching to interpret

them. If he is heard a similar statement before he maps the expression to the meaning

he assigned the first statement. Here we see how Christopher obsessive logic can fall

short in some circumstances. Assigning meaning to things simply by arbitrary

imposing order on them can lead to misunderstanding and logical conclusion.

Christopher explains why he choosen to leave his home. “I had to get out of

the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That he could murder me…”(152).

Logic never fails Christopher but in this instance deductive reasoning does fails him.

Christopher makes an erroneous assumption that because his father murdered the dog

Wellington his father will murder him two Christopher no longer feels safe in his

house with his father and makes a plan to escape. Logic leads Christopher to
 29

extraordinary mathematically mathematical insights and incredible academic

opportunity but it also handicaps him socially. Christopher digresses into an

continuously demonstrates an immense facility in navigating “And it is funny because

economists are real scientists, and because logicians think more clearly, but

mathematicians are best’ (177).

Only mathematicians are best” (177). Precise statement about what they see.

Christopher’s telling of the joke reveals a certain degree of superiority in his abilities

as a mathematician who he sees as being the best type of scientists. Christopher has an

almost religious faith in logic. The father seems to get some satisfaction out of the

fact that Christopher finally answers and tells him he did well in the exam.

“ Thank you… I am very proud of you, Christopher”(266). Typically Christopher

resumes watching the television seemingly unable to process the depth of emotion.

Christopher’s logical expressions for his actions often make sense even when it seems

like they shouldn’t suggesting the personal logic itself may not always be logical but

instead based on each person’s subjective point of view and ability to think in new

think in new ways.

 30

Chapter 4

Social Disorder

This article analyzes Mark Haddon's 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the

Dog in the Night-Time, using a combination of disability studies and ecocriticism. The

author argues that the novel's main character Christopher Boone presents a social

model of disability by challenging dominant society's treatment of him as not normal.

Christopher is ostensibly diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, although the novel

never explicitly labels him as disabled in any way. Through Christopher's views of

nature, language, knowledge, and social constructions of disability, we learn that

disability is an unstable category, and that dominant society can be disabling.

Importantly, though Christopher's critique of society is, as the author argues,

fundamentally environmental. That is, Christopher's views of language, knowledge,

and even the more than human world itself are central to his destabilization of the

category of disability. Christopher's environmental sensibility and critique of society's

disabling qualities emerge primarily through his discussions of language, which he

finds suspect because it distances humans from the world it describes. Thus, the novel

suggests that the disabling features of society that Christopher encounters are the

same features that distance humans from nature, particularly through language.

Mark Haddon's 2003 national bestseller, The Curious Incident of the Dog in

the Night-Time is a novel about an average 15-year old boy, Christopher Boone living

in contemporary England. Christopher's parents are separated and he is being raised

by his father in a middle-class neighborhood in Swindon. Readers are never explicitly

made aware of what makes Christopher not normal, but his ostensible disability

possibly Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism shapes the

 31

narrative. In this article, I offer a disability studies analysis of the text, and conclude

that the novel presents a liberatory model of disability, in part precisely because

Christopher's disability is never named raising the possibility that disability is in the

eye of the reader, not the character himself. But perhaps a less obvious reading of the

novel notes the way its treatment of disability is informed by an environmental

sensibility. That is, as I hope to demonstrate, Christopher's environmental awareness

especially as evidenced through his views of language create the foundation for the

novel's critique of disability. Combining disability studies theory and ecocriticism

then this article argues that Christopher's disability offers an environmental sensibility

and vice versa Christopher's environmental sensibility shapes his and the novel's

critique of disability.

The most important way that the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the

Night-Time achieves its message that disability is a social construction is through

point of view and using form to critique the dominant novel form: the novel is written

from Christopher's perspective, rather than being about Christopher. The story opens

with Christopher writing a story which is the novel itself about finding his neighbor's

dog murdered by a pitchfork. He writes this murder mystery novel The Curious

Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as an assignment for his special education

teacher, Siobhan. That Christopher is in a special education class is the strongest

evidence that he has a disability, but, as we will see, a disability studies perspective

suggests that this evidence is more a reflection of how society perceives Christopher

than an ontological reality. Christopher's disability is not easily categorized even

those who are supposed to be experts about his condition such as Siobhan, cannot

figure out quite how to treat him. By never explicitly diagnosing Christopher, author

Mark Haddon suggests a disability studies perspective from the outset: the medical
 32

model of disability is not central to Christopher's own experience of the world.

Haddon accomplishes this critique of the medical model by writing from

Christopher's perspective, which further emphasizes the value of personal experience

as opposed to expert authority, in helping us access truth. The critique of the novel

form illustrated by Christopher's literal rewriting of it further speaks to the importance

of perspective for a disability studies analysis. Writing about Christopher from any

other point of view would have undermined the novel's critique of dominant ableist

society: normal is not an absolute; it is a social construction that reflects more about

society than a person's mental or physical attributes.

He explore the emergence of the idea of "normal" as it helps us read The

Curious Incident as a critique of ableism. As Michel Foucault and disability scholars

such as Lennard Davis have established, the ideal of normal emerged out of particular

historical and cultural circumstances. The Curious Incident provides a powerful

critique of this category of normal Paradoxically, by challenging readers to see

Christopher as normal, the novel questions the very idea of normalcy in the first place.

The novel achieves this critique in part by exploring Christopher's relationship to

language. Language organizes the world in ways that often reflect power

relationships, and so any critique of normalcy is fundamentally a challenge to the

power of language to divide the world into hierarchies. Christopher's orientation

toward language is one of suspicion; he knows that people often use language to make

fun of him, and that language obscures his perception of the world. In these ways

language can naturalize disability as abnormal.

Although disability studies scholars and activists have examined this

naturalizing power of language, I want to add to this scholarship an ecocritical

 33

analysis, one which takes seriously the novel's insights about the relationship between

language and the nonhuman world itself. Christopher's views about language are not

only liberatory in terms of disability; they suggest a more ethical mode of being in the

nonhuman world. Some ecocritics and environmental writers argue that language is a

human construct imposed on the natural world in ways that have nothing to do with

how ecosystems operate, or nature's best interests. David Abrams captures this logic:

"The more prevalent view of language," he writes, "considers any

language to be a set of arbitrary conventionally agreed upon system of

words, or 'signs,' linked by a purely formal system of syntactic and

grammatical rules." Language then is rather like a code; it is a way of

representing actual things and events in the perceived world, but it has

no internal, nonarbitrary connections to that world, and hence is readily

separable from it" (77).

In this passage we see how as a form of representation language can distance

the human body from direct perception of the material world. Many environmental

and proto-environmental writers from Emily Dickinson to Gary Snyder grapple with

this question about language and mimesis posing the question: is language an artifice

that divides humans from nature? If language must be as transparent as possible,

despite its value as a tool to communicate the value of nature to others we must be

vigilant about the distinction between language and nature. To the extent that

language speaks a word for nature, as Thoreau famously tried to achieve in his writing

it runs the risk of replacing nature's voice with a human voice thereby silencing it all

the more. How can any language speak for nature without being tainted by the

speaker's interests? Christopher's views about language resonate with this ecocritical
 34

view and as I will show below, The Curious Incident's disability critique is

inextricably tied to its sensitivity to the complicated relationship between language

and nature.

The concept of normalcy is of central concern to disability studies. Like

critical race studies and feminist theory disability studies does not merely aim to put

one more voice at the table of power. Rather, like these other fields disability studies

seeks to challenge the fundamental paradigms that construct that table. Disability

studies emerged around the same time as the passage of the landmark 1990

Americans with Disabilities Act. Although the Act itself was an attempt to recognize

unequal treatment of people with disabilities and give them greater political visibility

the field of disability studies developed a more critical agenda focused on

historicizing and deconstructing the very premises of disability. The scholarly field

questions the very term disability on which the Act itself depends, and the social

structures that rely on consolidating power by defining disability as a deviant category

as other.

In his groundbreaking book, Enforcing Normalcy, disability studies scholar

Lennard Davis argues that "before the early to mid-nineteenth century, Western

society lacked a concept of normalcy" (100). The prevailing paradigm was that of the

ideal. Against the ideal everyone falls short of standard and so real people exist in

varying degrees of imperfection. Drawing on Michel Foucault's arguments about the

importance of docile bodies that submit to the demands of social order Davis claims

that it is only with the development of statistics and demography which saw patterns

in human society that we begin to imagine and value the norm. In this paradigm,

Davis concludes "the majority of bodies fall under the main umbrella of the curve.
 35

Those who do not are at the extremes and are therefore abnormal" (101). Instead of

pursuing an ideal, people in the past 150 years have been encouraged to strive to be

normal.

For example, it is only in the context of the industrialization of production, in

which "labor is standardized and bodies interchangeable" (Davis, 105), that a person

with a disability is seen and rejected as failing to meet the "norm" of ablebodiedness

required for work on an assembly line. Or, to put it more crudely, it's not the

wheelchair that makes it difficult for a person in a wheelchair to climb stairs, it's the

stairs. Historical developments, social expectations, and physical environments all

create conditions of disability. Disability is thus not located in the individual so much

as it is located in the contingent relationship between the individual and social

expectations of behavior and productivity.

Ironically however people considered abled rely on a whole set of aids,

technologies and medications to perform according to the norm. Do we think of Gor-

Tex being an accommodation we require to be comfortable in bad weather? What

about anti-depressants, or Viagra? If disabled is defined by requiring accommodations

to perform a certain standard as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act suggests

then why are these normal accommodations not associated with disability? Perhaps

Christopher in The Curious Incident articulates this point best. In response to being

categorized as special needs Christopher compares himself to the people around him,

trying to locate himself in this order of normalcy:

But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because

learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and

also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little
 36

packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his

coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-

colored hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give

you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are

Special Needs, even if they have special needs. (43-44)

Here, Christopher sees his limitations as comparable to using Sweet'n'Lo or

wearing glasses. If you struggle to understand quantum mechanics, you have a

learning difficulty. This passage suggests that it is the need that defines disability, not

the person. Therefore, disability is relative.

By deconstructing the language, Christopher challenges the assumed

dichotomy between normal and special, and subverts the basis for the social stigma of

disability. If we view the apparatuses used to accommodate autism as comparable to

the apparatuses that help normal people function, then the category special makes no

sense. They are only different in degree, not kind. Disability is therefore an arbitrary

social category, and would perhaps be better understood in terms of a spectrum of

abilities that are relative to environmental conditions. Disability studies scholars hold

that identity is not fixed, but they also add that identity is not static; that is, ability

varies according to environment and stage of life. One person's disabling conditions

may be another person's ideal conditions. In this passage, then, Christopher articulates

one of disability studies' most important critiques of normalcy by challenging what it

means to be as opposed to have special needs.

Disability theorist Susan Wendell claims that all bodies are in flux, not just

those of the disabled. The rigid binary of disabled-nondisabled is a myth: "we are all

disabled eventually. Most of us will live part of our lives with bodies that hurt, that
 37

move with difficulty or not at all, that deprive us of activities we once took for

granted or that others take for granted, bodies that make daily life a physical struggle"

(263). Indeed, depending on the situation one can be abled and disabled at the same

time. Disability studies thus expose the instability of the category "disabled" and the

cultural work that it does.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time dramatizes these themes.

One way that it does so is precisely by destabilizing dominant notions of normalcy. It

paradoxically shows us how normal Christopher is and through Christopher's

perspective, how silly society's ideas of normalcy are. For example, Christopher's life

goals are perfectly normal: he wants to get a degree and a job earn lots of money and

get a lady to marry me so she can look after me so I can have company (45). This

characterization of a normal life trajectory shows that "normal" people are not any

different from him, despite the tyranny of normalcy that constantly stigmatizes him.

And, in contrast, normates are irrational, unobservant, and mean to animals (100), in

Christopher's estimation. They "leap to the wrong conclusions," as in detective novels

(99), they stupidly make decisions based on intuition rather than logic (65), and, as

Christopher reasons, "sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to

know the truth" (90). "Normal" people are inferior to him. Perhaps normal is not

ideal.

Furthermore, everybody exhibits idiosyncrasies that make them identifiable to

Christopher, differences that mark them as abnormal: Christopher writes, "I see what

they are wearing, or if they have a walking stick, or funny hair, or a certain type of

glasses, or they have a particular way of moving their arms" (77-78). Nobody can

hide behind a veneer of normalcy; everyone is different in some way. And

 38

Christopher reads bodies clothing, affect, and accommodations to prove this. Indeed,

at times in the novel, we are struck by the thought that this boy is more normal or, at a

minimum, more adjusted and knowledgeable of himself than the normal people in the

novel. This depiction challenges the hierarchy implied by the dichotomy between

abnormal and normal, and reveals the instability of the term itself.

Another way that the novel dramatizes the insights of disability studies is by

privileging Christopher's individual experience and authority over the external,

disciplining, normalizing gaze of a third person narrator. Haddon's choice of

perspective is crucial; point of view has everything to do with the novel's critique of

normalcy. As poststructuralist, feminist, and critical race theorists have argued, there

is no objective truth out there, other than our own subjective perspectives. Pretenses

of truth or "truth regimes serve to fortify dominant orders and oppress marginalized

groups. The presumption that there is only one way to correctly and fully know the

world has the effect of neglecting non-dominant ways of knowing the world. Thus,

feminist theorists such as Donna Haraway argue for situated knowledges, an idea

extending Hartstock's theory of standpoint theory that allows for multiple ways of

knowing the world based on unique perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. For

Haraway, all forms of knowledge are partial and based on subjective experience; there

is no such thing as objectivity outside of subjectivity. She goes as far as to insist that

"only partial perspective promises objective vision" (190). Everyone has their own

situated knowledge, but disability studies offers a particularly cogent argument for

thinking in these terms, since the world is designed with the normative in mind.

By privileging Christopher's point of view, Haddon reminds readers that

knowledge is situated. Indeed, even the fact that Christopher is writing a murder
 39

mystery and sees his role as the detective reinforces the fact that this novel is

fundamentally about epistemology. His role underscores that how we detect and

thereby come to know truth is central to the novel's message. Furthermore, the novel's

epistemological message is sensual. The novel strips readers of their own

epistemological habits and assumptions, and asks readers to detect the world through

Christopher's senses. This exercise allows readers to investigate their own

assumptions about truth and reality.

If our bodies provide us information about the world—that is, our senses tell

us what is real and what is not—then different kinds of bodies yield different kinds of

knowledges. Disability studies, feminist, and critical race theorists emphasize that the

relationship between one's body and one's knowledge helps shape one's situated

knowledge or standpoint. If the world is designed to accommodate the normate's

body, then non-normates are all the more attuned to the material world, as they spend

much more energy navigating it. Michael Dorn calls this heightened attention to the

environment geographical maturity. He argues that because the disabled body

"remain[s] attentive and responsive to changing environmental conditions," it

"exhibits a mature form of environmental sensitivity" (183). Similarly, "differently-

abled" people are not "different" because of any absolute, essential, or static condition

of their own but because the world is designed with normates in mind, as Wendell

noted.

The novel's attention to Christopher's sensual way of knowing the world

emphasizes his "environmental sensitivity." For example, the hypothetical is

unimaginable to him, as we see when he discusses how people ask him what he thinks

his mother would think about something: these questions are "stupid because Mother
 40

is dead and you can't say anything to people who are dead and dead people can't

think" (79). Christopher's epistemology is so firmly rooted in the material world that

he cannot imagine such an abstraction as the hypothetical. Christopher's observations

and senses often overwhelm him because he is taking in more information than

normal people do. In his words, "most people are lazy. They never look at everything.

They do what is called glancing, which is the same word for bumping off something

and carrying on in almost the same direction." This leads them to a truth that is

incomplete, in Christopher's view. He writes, "The information in their head is really

simple" (140).

The body's perceptions constitute one's knowledge of the world; they don't

merely mediate the world. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher's heightened interest in a direct connection to the material world and

distaste for artifice provides an excellent example of an eco-phenomenological way of

thinking. When Christopher dismisses Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of his favorite

detective novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, for believing in a photograph of

fairies, he elaborates on his own standards for truth in terms of Occam's razor: "no

more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary" (90). In other

words, the only evidence we can be sure of is that which we can perceive. The fact

that Christopher is so struck by the fake photograph of fairies is indicative of the

importance he places on the material world as the bearer of truth.

Language that does not precisely depict what it describes, language that has

more than a one-step remove from the reality it describes, can be understood, then, as

un-ecological. Metaphors are even worse. They make no pretense of trying to

represent the world directly, as Abrams' passage about language as a code of

 41

representation above illustrated. Indeed, Christopher calls metaphors lies. Because

such language attempts to create a figure in our mind's eye about the meaning of that

figure, it only gets in the way of our direct experience of reality. Christopher defines

metaphors as, "when you describe something by using a word for something that it

isn't." When he tries to imagine the metaphor, "apple of my eye," the process of

figuring it in his mind confuses him: "When I try and make a picture of the phrase in

my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't

have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person

was talking about" (15).

Later, he expounds further on the alienation of language from reality in terms

of his name. In response to the news that his name refers to Saint Christopher, who

helped Jesus, he writes, "I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and

helpful. I want my name to mean me" (16). The name "Christopher" refers not to

Christopher, the boy, but to Saint Christopher, an icon of saintly traits. In this sense,

when language refers to something else instead of what it describes, it removes us one

more step from that thing itself. This is why Christopher is suspicious of figurative

language; in semiotic terms, he wants his name to signify its signified himself as

closely as possible. No two things can be the same; again, everything is idiosyncratic,

and so language should reflect that.

This is also why, when Siobhan is telling him how to write a book,

Christopher wants to include photographs, and finds it odd to include only

descriptions of things:

Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include

some descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and

 42

put them in the book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe

things using words so that people could read them and make a picture

in their own head. (67)

To Christopher, photographs more accurately represent the world than words,

and descriptions in words leave too much room for interpretation. The process of

reading and making pictures in your own head is not as direct a way to know the

world than images, which cut out the middle man of language, so to speak and more

directly represent reality. By extension, being in the world provides a more direct

access to the world than reading about the world does. Christopher's aversion to

complex language is not, as normate society would have it a sign of his lack of mental

ability. Rather, we can see it as a rejection of language's function as representation of

reality, as ornament or artifice, as a more authentic less corrupt, and less

anthropomorphized way of being in the world.

Christopher also thinks that seeing a constellation a picture in the stars is a

silly, arbitrary exercise; one can connect the dots anyway one likes. Constellations are

illusions imposed on stars by the human desire to see the human in nature.

Christopher finds this projection to be a lie, for, after all, "Orion is not a hunter or a

coffeemaker or a dinosaur. It is just Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and Alnilam and Rigel

and 17 other stars I don't know the names of." Here, Christopher strips the

constellation of its human-imposed order and rejects this form of anthropomorphism.

Nature, like the stars, holds no judgment and needs no such artificial framework of

order. Unlike the rest of humanity, Christopher doesn't "read into" the stars. The novel

emphasizes how important Christopher's way of reading the world is to his knowledge

of the world, as Christopher then declares, "And that is the truth" (126). Thus, we can
 43

see that Christopher's epistemology informs a particular kind of orientation toward the

natural world, which some environmental philosophers might call more ethical than

normal.

Similarly, Christopher holds no illusions about death. The death of his mother

is comparable to the death of his rabbit in that death simply transforms their bodies

into another form. The location of their spirits is not part of Christopher's worldview.

Heaven is abstract and a superficial solace for people who "don't like the idea of

dying" (33). Dying doesn't scare Christopher because his worldview is so this-

worldly, material, phenomenological, if you will. We can see his views of death not as

heartlessness, but rather as further evidence of his epistemology being so rooted in the

material world. What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working

and your body rots he writes. When his rabbit died,

All his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they

went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into plants and

if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing

except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be

gone. But that is all right because he is part of the flowers and the

apple tree and the hawthorn bush now. (33)

In this passage, we see Christopher's highly earthly, ecological view of death.

He takes solace not in the possibility of people's spirits existing eternally in heaven,

but rather in the fact that the deterioration of Rabbit's body feeds flowers and apple

trees and hawthorn bushes. His perspective is ecological in this sense, but also

because he imagines time in a longer, geologic scale than the more anthropocentric

frame of his own lifetime. Christopher even feels this way about his own Mother. He
 44

imagines "molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or

coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere" (33-34). The

transformation of dead bodies into the ecosystem is more of a truth and therefore

comfort to him than imagining the presence of his Mother's spirit.

I have argued that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

challenges the very terms of normalcy that circumscribe disability, that it does so

through the situated knowledge of an autistic narrator, and that epistemology—how

we come to know what we know is central to the novel's critique. I have also argued

that Christopher's way of knowing the world is highly corporeal, and that his

epistemology is not only important to a disability studies analysis of the novel, but

that, because it recovers the human connection to the natural world, it has

implications for environmental thought as well.

In these ways, the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

works against the tendency of literature and popular culture to portray disability in a

negative light. In films, novels, and even advertising, disabled characters are always

marked as outside the norm and they are used to reinforce the value of normalcy.

Rather than having normal lives and goals, and complex personalities, disabled people

always fill the role of the other against which the norm is upheld. As Rosemarie

Garland-Thomson argues disabled characters are never just themselves; they are

always symbolic of something else. They are pathological a symbol of contamination

or tragedy exotic in their difference or spectacle Literary critic David Mitchell

describes this phenomenon in literature as a kind of narrative prosthesis. The disabled

person is the prosthetic limb that a text uses to hold together its narrative. Even when

they are represented in positive terms, people with disabilities are what disability
 45

theorists call supercrips; think, for example, of Erik Weyenmaier, the blind man who

climbed Everest, or Stephen Hawking, whose intelligence is often viewed as

remarkable because of his visible bodily impairment. Disabled characters never speak

for themselves; they fulfill a narrative function. Disabled characters help resolve

plots, and the resolutions are always about repairing deviance in some way. But of

course this merely serves to reinforce the norm.

In part because it rewrites the very form of the novel itself, The Curious

Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time does not make Christopher's disability a

narrative prosthesis. It does not resolve the tensions within it by repairing

Christopher's differences, nor does it hold Christopher up as supercrip. The novel

does not end with Christopher coming to some terms with mainstream society, nor

does it end with his parents reuniting. The climax finding out who killed the dog, as

per the novel's title—is in fact anticlimactic, underscoring the importance of not

resolving Christopher's abnormalcy in the novel.

Garland-Thomson argues that representations of disability ought to move

"from pathology to identity" (135). Literary narratives of disability ought to portray

people with disabilities as real people with complicated identities, not just symbols of

something else. While any representation of disability has social and cultural

implications, The Curious Incident portrays Christopher as complex and motivated by

a variety of forces; he is not, as are most disabled characters in fiction, exotic,

pathological, tragic, sentimentalized, or an "opportunistic metaphoric device" (15), as

Mitchell calls it. Haddon avoids using Christopher as a symbol for autism, a point he

takes pains to make by not medicalizing Christopher and not even mentioning the

term autism. Those are labels that normates use to organize people they deem other;
 46

autism is not a label Christopher needs to help him make sense of himself in the

world. To use it would be to undermine the power of Christopher's subjectivity.

Rather, the novel teaches us about Christopher. Just as we should not associate his

name with the story of St. Christopher, which moralizes about being kind and helpful,

the novel avoids turning Christopher into a story about anything else but him.
 47

Chapter 5

Summation

The Middle English period sees a huge transition in the language, culture, and

lifestyle of England and results in what we can recognize today as a form of “modern”

(recognizable) English. The era extends to around 1500. As with the old English

period, much of the Middle English writings were religious in nature; however, from

about 1350 onward, secular literature began to rise. This period is home to the likes of

Chaucer, Thomas Malory, and Robert Henryson. Notable works include “Piers

Plowman” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.

Mark Haddon a contemporary British writer won Whitbread Book of the year

Award, commonwealth writer’s prize, Guardian children’s Fiction prize and man

Booker prize for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in 2003.

In this Novel Haddon explores the struggle and hardships of a fifteen year old by

Christopher John Francis Boone. And he also portrays the life of British people.

The first chapter ‘Introduction’ deals with literature, its influence of human

life and how literary works provide information and pleasure to the readers. It also

describer British literature and its beginning stage. More over it gives information

about mark Haddon, his works, his contemporary writers and the summary of the

novel. The Curious Incident of the day in the Nighttime.

The second chapter ‘Autism’ takes a look at the arguments made by mark

Haddon in his work The curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Haddon has

insisted that he is not an expert on Aspher syndrome but Christopher’s story remains

an important catalyst for understanding the perspective of people with autism. It also

explores how the children are affected by Aspher syndrome through the character of
 48

Christopher John Francis Boone. Haddon also shows the fact that isolation and

loneliness help people to understand their own self.

The third chapter ‘Logic vs emotion’ deals with the logic mind and logical

thinking of Christopher. Haddon explores Christopher logical thinking through the

murder of wellington and his mother’s death. He always think logical. Haddon

explores Christopher’s emotion in the novel when he first find out that his mother is

alive. Christopher is able to recognize some emotions by the faces that people make

but he does not fully understand many emotions.

The fourth chapter ‘Social Disorder’ clearly defines normal and problematic

behaviors it also acknowledges that normal is not necessarily better Haddon also

portrays every person has special needs het are not give that novel through the

Normalcy of Christopher. Haddon explores Christopher’s story sends an underlying

message of tolerance of the outside normal society even if instigated by an intolerant

character.

The fifth chapter ’Summation’ deals with the previous chapters. Haddon

explores the behavior and the characters of the people throughout the novel. He

express the suffering and struggle of austic children who affected by Aspher

syndrome. We and understand the mind set, behavior, and their logical thinking of

autism children through the character of Christopher by make Haddon. Every

sentence Haddon has penned as clear as crystal and pure as snow.