Language

Style of language

The language used in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is closely connected to Christopher’s unique voice as the first-person narrator. Christopher’s language often comes across as childish, because he often struggles to understand the world around him and uses lots of simple details to describe a scene. For example: “Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and numbers and you know what they are meant to be doing. There was a policewoman and a policeman.” (p. 7)

Christopher sometimes uses incorrect or unusual grammar, which suggests that he doesn’t always fully understand the concepts he is talking about: “And I said, ‘Was that why Mr Shears left Mrs Shears, because he was doing se...