Digression and Tone in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"

Digression:

Mark Haddon has many ways of showing Christopher Boons voice in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Since Christopher has Aspergers Syndrome his voice in the book is very unique. Haddon uses digression often because Christopher has problems concentrating so his mind often wonders to other places. An example is on page 258 paragraph 2. This is a good example because Christopher is having trouble concentrating so he starts thinking about stabbing and hitting somebody. This is not the only time that Christopher starts thinking about something that has nothing to do with the main topic. Christopher also forces his mind to think about other things sometimes just to make him feel more comfortable for example on page 208-210. Here Christopher is at the train station and he doesn’t know what he’s doing so he forces himself to think about the signs so that he doesn’t have to worry about his dad or the trains. Christopher also digresses because he has to explain things to himself for him to understand what he is seeing. On pages 80-81 he explains the math problem so that he can make his decision. There is a little bit of digression on every page because Christopher notices and analyzes everything around him so the book’s structure is a little messy, but that’s what makes it so good.

Tone:
Christopher Boone’s tone throughout the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is very unique and sure not to be found in any other book. Christopher has Aspergers Syndrome so he explains everything in great detail. On page 4 Christopher explains why he likes dogs. A normal book would only write a few examples but Christopher uses clear examples like “You always know what a dog is thinking. It has 4 moods. Happy, sad, cross, and concentrating.” or “I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes”. Christopher’s tone is also different from others because he always tells the truth, even if it’s not what people want to hear, it’s the truth. A good example of this is on page 24 where Christopher explains why he doesn’t lie. Because Christopher doesn’t lie, in the book he does not use metaphors nor jokes because he is unable to understand them. Mark Haddon’s book quickly pulls you in, because Christopher’s tone makes you interested and it also makes you wonder what could possibly be going through this boys mind.