The Curious Incident of the dog in the night

Synthèse

This set of documents is composed of the book cover with an extract from The Curious Incident of the dog in the night - time written by Mark Haddon. Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screen - writer who has written fifteen books for children and won numerous prizes. The Curious was published in 2003. This set of documents is composed of some pictures from the serie Wednesday on Netflix published on november 23th 2022. They all deal with autism, autistic reacts in front of society. This set of documents raises the question of how autistic people use this difference as a superpower ? In the first part of my essay I will show the characterization. In the second part of my essay I will study the genre of these documents. And finally I will explore the message from the authors.

Firstly, I will talk about the characterization. Characterization is a name for the methods a writer uses to reveal a character's values, feelings, goals, to readers. I can take the example of Christopher, indeed Christopher is different from other people. He is autistic, he has a different way of thinking. For example, in the beginning of the Curious Incident, I can see immediately how Christopher thinks, that means we are in Christopher's brain. Christopher is a stock character, he is an archetypal character with a fixed set of personality traits. Another example but this time with the serie wednesday, wednesday addams is also a stock character, in the serie she tries to find who is the monster that kills people. Both of them have their own atmosphere but they have some common points, for example both of them are writing a book, their own story. (doc 2) They are also a symbolic character because they represent autistic people, and because they are the main character of the story.

Secondly, I will talk about the genre of the Curious Incident and Wednesday. The Curious Incident is a bildungsroman. Bildungsroman  is a literary genre of stories about a character growing psychologically and morally from their youth into adulthood. We can also say that it is a novel of education. Indeed in the story Christopher grows up. He is more sociable, for example we can take the extract when he is investigating. He has to ask some questions to his neighbors to find who killed the dog. Christopher and wednesday have a common point, it is that they don’t like when someone touches them. But for Wednesday it evaluates, on this document we can see Wednesday and her friend Enid in their room, they have their own zone. On the second picture we can see Wednesday and Enid hugging, that is one of the last scenes of the series and I can imagine that Wednesday grows up and is now accepting that people touch her. Wednesday and the Curious are also a whodunit genre, whodunit is a mystery fiction that focuses on the puzzle regarding who committed the crime.

Finally I will talk about the messages from the authors, as I said Christopher and wednesday are symbolic characters because they represent autistic people. But it is hard to identify yourself in them. Maybe you can in some way but not at the whole character. I can directly understand that Christopher is autistic, we can see on the book cover the color blue. Blue symbolizes autistic people. I think the message from the authors is that autistic people are normal, they just have a different way of thinking. I can take the example of Wednesday in that picture. She is playing cello. Playing cello is her hobby, maybe different people can identify with her because she is playing that instrument. And Christopher loves mathematics. Maybe others people like mathematics and can identify with him. For me the message from the authors is that autistic people are different from the norm but being different is a superpower.

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