Journey to London

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Yessenia Garcia Honors English 4-12-12 Journey to London The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon, is about an autistic boy, Christopher Boone, who has Asperger syndrome. One night while wandering the street he find his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, dead and tries to uncover the mystery of who killed him. In the process of doing so he finds out that his mother, Judy Boone who was said to be dead, is actually well alive and living in London. When Christopher finds out that his father, Ed Boone, is the one who killed Wellington he is terrified and decides to run away and find his mother. Christopher’s journey to London parallels that of the voyage and return archetype, because of his journey has the qualities and results of the voyage and return archetype. Christopher’s journey is terrifying and difficult. While trying to make his way to London Christopher is faced with the situation of being around too many people. While he was finding his way around the metro he would bark at people, like a dog, whenever they bumped into or slightly touched him. Due to Asperger syndrome Christopher does not like being touched by people and becomes physically overwhelmed when people do. The journey is difficult for him because he is in an unfamiliar area. One of Christopher’s symptoms of autism is that he takes in every little detail that most people would not observe or take into consideration. When he’s in a new place he says “it is like when a computer is doing too many things at the same time…and there isn’t any space left to think” (143). He becomes so lost in his thoughts about everything he is seeing and completely shuts down, because it is too much to take in. Christopher is also oblivious to danger. On his journey he takes along his pet rat, Toby, and loses him in the metro. When he finally spots Toby he finds him down in the train tracks
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