How does Haddon use colour to the tell story in Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time

Describe how Haddon uses colour to tell the story in the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, tells the story through the perspective of Christopher, a character with Asperger’s syndrome. Part of Christopher’s condition is that he does not understand linguistic techniques such as a metaphors; he does not understand the emotional connotations behind descriptions that you would find in texts such as poetry. Thus through his narrative you would expect the story to be simple descriptions with no symbolism. However the use of colour, does create a mood, which the reader can interpret even if Christopher does not when he reports what he has seen.

For example at the beginning of the story, Christopher opens with describing when he found the dead dog. He describes the dog as being” pale yellow like chicken”. Whilst Christopher is merely making a comparison between the colour of the dog and the chicken, Haddon cleverly creates a mood. The reader would be able to associate yellow with disease. Thus through use of colour Haddon creates imagery, which the reader can interpret, but which also Christopher can report as it is factual unlike a metaphor.

The descriptions of colour not only create a mood throughout the story but also allow us to form some sort of judgement or have insight in to the other characters. For example whilst Christopher merely observes Mrs Shears wearing “pink nail varnish” as readers without AS we can interpret that Mrs Shears is feminine and perhaps vain.

Similarly, Siobhan is described as wearing green glasses, which creates the impression of her being lively, and slightly non-conformist. The contrast of characters helps demonstrate the diversity of the different characters without Christopher making a judgement of them himself.

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Another element of Christopher’s condition is that he likes everything to be ordered, and colours are one way in which he likes ordering things. For example he dislikes the colour yellow and likes the colour red. Colour continually recurs in the descriptions of the food he eats. Thus helps maintain the impression of order, and the continuity of Christopher’s character. Continually through each chapter, no matter the events preceding, Christopher routinely describes the food he eats for his three meals a day. This helps not present Christopher’s like for order but represents how he remains detached and cool; no matter the circumstances he does not become emotionally involved. For example after discovering your dad has lied about your mother, Christopher clearly goes through emotional trauma demonstrated by his vomiting he still remembers exactly what food he packs in his lunch box. Others without As in such circumstances would not be thinking logically in the same way as Christopher as we would be too distracted. Here colour demonstrates that this order is part of Christopher’s very being and his daily life. It also, like the chapters throughout the stories, links the events happening in Christopher’s life to Christopher’s condition.

Interestingly, whilst the mention of colours is resembled throughout, Christopher’s attitude to them changes. Whilst, at the beginning there is a continual report of the good Christopher eats, towards the end Christopher is forced to wear for example yellow shorts. This technique cleverly symbolises how before Christopher’s world was ordered but has now been turned upside down; He is wearing yellow shorts where before having to wear yellow shorts would have been a huge issue.

This symbolism is similar to when Christopher’s father bangs the table and Christopher’s food, clearly defined colours mixes.

The emphasise that colours play a huge part in also symbolising other developments in the story. As already stated colour clearly plays an important part in Christopher’s life; throughout the story many of the progressing decisions Christopher makes are based on his good days and bad days. Good days are whenever Christopher sees more than three cars than red, bad days are when he sees yellow cars. He states “Because it was a good day I decided I would try and who killed Wellington “. The decision to investigate who killed Wellington seems dependant on the colour of a car which seems ludicrous. Yet it creates interest because it allows Christopher to break out his boring mundane life and constantly reminds the reader of Christopher’s condition.

Overall colours allow Christopher to express his emotions. Part of his AS condition is that does understand the complexity of human emotions nor does he like them; He likes everything to be rooted to factual evidence thus explaining his like for colours which are empirical information. However, demonstrated throughout the play he does not lack the ability to feel emotions. For example when he believes his mother to be in hospital, he colours red cars on a card to make it a super super happy day for her. Whilst he does explain or possibly understand feeling of compassion or care for his mother, the fact that he paints her something which associated with happiness demonstrates he does possess these feelings. Thus is makes the reader feel sympathy and empathy with and also engages our interest in to his character and condition.

Furthermore, the reiterating themes of colours not only convey structure of our life but generally allows us to know how Christopher. The colours create imagery like they would in a normal novel. For example, we know that when Christopher describes himself going home and eating broccoli it creates the atmosphere of relaxation, it is something which Christopher enjoys even thought Christopher himself does not state I feel relaxed I feel happy.

So overall colours play an important part in the story. They constantly remind us of how Christopher perceives the world and allow us to experience in a structured manner the way he does. However they also allow an atmosphere to be created whilst it is not intentional through Christopher’s. They also portray the structure of Christopher’s life when he is reasonably content to when like his system for colours, his life is no longer organised or the transgression from christopher’s life of normality until after finding the dog (typical in all novels). They also allow us insight in to Christopher’s own emotions that he himself cannot intentionally communicate due to his condition and colours we associated with Christopher’s happiness create an atmosphere.