Homework for Lesson #12, The Curious Incident...

Sally's Homework:

I want to compare The curious incident of the dog in the night-time to The catcher in the rye. First, they are both great books about kid. They showed the story from a kids view. Both of the main-character was different from other people in the novel. Holden is different because he sees the dark side of the society and he was protecting other kids from getting in to it. Christopher is different, which is obvious to see, that he has some mental problem. I know that at my age, it’s hard for me to understand the absolute meaning of the book, but because I am still a kid, these novels arouse my sympathy. The difference between two novels is that if we put Holden in our real life, he is just a normal kid. J.D Salinger was using him to show abnormal society. But Christopher was truly different. I can not even understand what he was doing and saying at first. While, although it take time to understand, it’s interesting to see life in a different way, in a view of a “psychopath”. At the same time, I can understand people who are different from me better. They also have there own feelings and maybe they are a genius! 

Their writing style were also similar to each other. They do not have a complicated plot. The whole story was like an conversation. It feels like that Christopher and Holden are just standing in front of you and telling you what had happened, because the writer adds many of the character’s thoughts and describe the feelings. And those seemed so real that you might think it’s not a novel but a real story. That catches me immediately. 

Jesse's Homework:

As I flipped through they last page of the book, I was surprised: What? That’s it? It seems like the book ended in a absurd way, because nothing big and “the prince and princess lived happily forever” has happened. But think about it, Christopher is a special need, and from the words and stories that happened we can understand that he is a kind of people who always wants to be contented with waist he want. So the original intention of the book was to find out who killed Wellington, it was solved, so to Christopher, this book should end here.

Looking back onto the last few chapters, plot development has fluctuate a lot, which is okay because Christopher just wanted to describe things. I think this is a good end for Christopher because he finally has his math test and got a excellent grade, his mother came back even though she was asked to move out. He solve the problem about Wellington, and he went to London on his own. It’s like what he said in the end: this means that I can do anything. Even though I sort of laugh at it, it’s still a adorable and perfect ending.

What’s interesting is few things happened in the book, just like the Catcher in the Rye, Christopher didn’t describe EVERYTHING, though he actually spent too much on some specific details. What I think is that Christopher depicted every events that’s related the the main plot, such as the conversation with Mrs. Alexander, or the way Mr. Shears talked with his mother. These details all uncover the relationships between people and explain some of the things happened after. This might be a good writing skill because you don’t want to reveal things by saying “oh, then I found out that my mom was with Mr/ Shears”or “they broke up eventually”, which is dumb.

Lastly, I think as a special need writer, Christopher has done a great job. He not only described things well, but also have persisted in writing this book, I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I was the writer. So I think this is a nice story, with interesting characters and plots with suspension, with some interesting graphs and pictures that made this book different from the others.

James' Essay:

Christopher’s father plays an important role in the whole story line and his character impresses many readers. And at least I am impressed by him. 

At the very beginning, I thought Father is just a normal person and I didn't like him because he always shout to his son and makes his son not do many things. I don't like a Father being like that, and to my opinion, he is restricting his son’s freedom even in the case that there will not be any danger.

But my mind kept changing when I knew that Christopher is a special boy. Then, I could always notice how hard Father is working and taking care of his special son. Sometimes I felt like I could understand why Father is being so angry or annoyed, and I even wanted to suggest Christopher to mind his behavior. For instance, he doesn't listen to his father often and he refused to eat some things after father well prepared them. 

As the story goes farther, I knew more about father. I knew that he is holding a huge secret; I knew he is suffering while living; and I even could see how deeply he loves his son even Christopher leaves him; I knew that he feels regretful and down as going to the hell; I knew that he tries every means to seek his son back to home; and I could imagine how he feels when he is staying at home alone or when he shouts to Mother and Mr. Shears. He loves his son most and he does lots of things for his son. He never hates his son even he leaves him, and he even stops hating Mother when he knows getting along with Mother can somehow bring his son back to him.

I think Father can also be treated as a main character of this novel, and it is Father that helps to consolidate the whole story structure.

He is the greatest father whether he is the most perfect or not.