TER 6 : corrigé text the curious incident of the dog in the night time

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

the documents we are about to tackle are 4 extracts all isssued from the same book entitled
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME and published in 2003 by Mark Handdon.
If my teacher felt the need to show us 4 extracts it is mainly due to the fact that she thought they exemplified the 4 main interests of the book.
Indeed in the first extract we are presented with the events which led the author to choose such an enigmatic title for his book.
The second gives us even more specific details about the murder and the way the narrator reacted .It allows us then to find out more about this puzzling character.
The third one deepens our knowledge of the character while dwelling on some of the litterary techniques used in Whoddunits.
The last extract is essential in so far as it discloses the truth behind this enigma.
Our plan will follow these four lines.So let's start without furtherado.

THE FACTS :
in this part tell the examiner about the main events and the different characters involved.and the real murderer as well as his motives in comitting such a crime.
The crucial character of this narrative is of course Christopher .

THE NARRATOR :
a) the basic facts about him (age/ mother/ father)
b) his disease and its symptoms
c)We might wonder why the author chose such a narrator as his main hero.First of all , it might have been pretty difficult to put himself in the shoes of a 15-year-old teenager.Such a performance might be regarded as verging on acting as the author had to learn how to mimick the vocabulary as well as the attitude of an adolescent.
Still he made things even more complicated by creating a youth with such syndrom.
And yet i do believe that this choise makes the narrative even more original since it is not our typical hero.
Secondly this narrator has a refreshing vision of life.He reacts in an unexpected way .Thus the reader is quite often taken aback which makes the book even more mesmerizing.
Finally it is quite ironical that this adolescent who is unable to lie should be surrounded by liars.
We might even go as far as to say that his life is but a sham as his father makes him believe that his mother is dead while she actually left them.
So the mysterious death of the dog will soon become secondary .The main investigation will soon shift to his own life and the lies surrounding it.
As such the author is using a classical litterary technique as we will discover in the next part.

THE LITTERARY TECHNIQUES
a) the book within the book :
the narrator in one of the extracts unveils the fact that the whole book was written by himself .
In doing so he was following the advice of his therapist who had suggested that writing a book might help him cope with the stress in his life.
The first extract we were given to read then was following the guidelines of Siobhan , his therapist.
Indeed she had hinted at the necessity to begin the book " with something to grab people's attention"
And indeed the beginning of the book is quite striking as the victim in no humanbeing but a dog which is to say the least , original.
But the mise en abime does not end there.
b) the mise en abime:( the book within the book)
what i find ironical is that the narrator Chritstopher decides to write a murder story since his friend advised him to "write something I would want to write myself".
So logically enough he writes a murder mystery novel as he is keen on this litterary genre.
But what he could not anticipate was the fact that by writing a mystery novel he was going to start an investigation that would bring more answers than he had bargained for.
Indeed by solving the mysterious death of a dog , he will end up deciphering the alleged death of his own mother.
These different layers make the book even more fascinating and intriguing.

YOUR OPINION ON THESE TEXTS
did you like or dislike them and why?
CONCLUSION :
the narrator states that he loves murder mystery novels because they are like "puzzles" in which people have to collect pieces to be able to see " the whole picture ".
But here I believe that the mystery does not represent the core of the picture.It is rather the human mind that appears like the puzzle that we, readers, have to solve.
This boy is sent on a quest for his own identity.He will gather the pieces that will allow him to fully understand his life.
Following in his tracks, the reader reflects on his own parenthood while reading a thrilling novel.
Let me conclude by saying that by disentangling Christopher's mind the writer is teaching us a valuable lesson. Never mind how puzzling some people might be, those unconventional people are the very ones who most of the time show us life under a different light and reveal the truth about ourselves.