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Hero, a word used to describe someone who has accomplished brave fleets. Being a hero means overcoming difficult obstacles and using their courage to help others. Christopher, a boy with Asperger's syndrome, from the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, has not done any of these. The story takes place in a town in England called Swindon. One day, Christopher discovers a dead dog, named Wellington, in his neighbor's yard, and starts an investigation.
His adventure takes a turn for the worst when Christopher finds letters from his presumed-dead mother.
When questioned about this, his father admitted to killing Wellington, which frightened Christopher.
Deciding it was not safe to live with his father, Christopher journeys to London to live with his mother using trains stations. Despite having an adventure, Christopher's story does not classify as a “Hero’s Journey” because it misses many elements of the archetype. During the entirety of the book, Christopher has been running away and hides from his fears, which is the complete opposite of being heroic.
Christopher was never heroic during in his own story because he never did anything worth being called a hero and his adventure is not a “Hero’s Journey”.
A repeating trait that Christopher shows in his adventure is the urge to run or hide from complications.
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The first instance of this issue occurring in the book is within the first few pages, especially when Christopher meets a policeman after hugging dead Willington. The policeman extensively questions Christopher, which confused him to the point where he curls up towards the ground and groans.
“He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly… I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning.” Instead of slowly processing the questions given to him, Christopher instead immediately gives up hope and physically blocks himself from additional information input.
This is non-heroic behavior and does not make Christopher look brave.
Another instance where Christopher turned away from issues was during his trip to his mother’s house in London. Christopher successfully took a train from Swindon to an unnamed station and in that station, he was supposed to take another train to Willesden, at least he was supposed to. After arriving at the underground tunnel to wait for his next train, Christopher has yet another sensory overload where he sat on a seat for 5 hours with his eyes closed doing nothing but listening to the trains. “And I kept my eyes closed and I didn’t look at my watch at all… I had been sitting on the bench for approximately 5 hours.” To put it in perspective, Christopher was not able to overcome his fear of loud noises for 5 hours until the station was almost empty, which was not very heroic or brave for him to do. It can thus be deduced that Christopher is not a heroic character in his own story, and further analysis would also prove his adventure to be unheroic as well.
When he discovered that his father killed Wellington, Christopher starts his journey to his mother’s house in London, however, it did not classify as a “Hero’s Journey”. To be a “Hero’s Journey”, Christopher’s adventure must include most (if not all) of the criteria for it to become a “Hero’s Journey”. Many of these requirements are not met during the events of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. One such unmet requirement is Step: Supernatural Aid. Although Christopher completed part one of Step 4, Entering the Unknown, he was unable to obtain part two, which was Supernatural Aid. “Heroes are almost always started on their journey by a character who has mastered the laws of the outside world and come back to bestow this wisdom upon them.”
At no point of the book does Christopher gets help from any supernatural being during his journey, especially one that has “mastered the laws of the outside world”. Christopher’s story does not pass Step 4 of being a “Hero’s Journey” since it was missing a part in this step that prevents it from being completed. During Christopher’s adventure, another noticeable step that was not completed for the story to become a “Hero’s Journey” was Step 5, Allies and Helpers. A crucial step any story must meet to become a “Hero’s Journey”, and one that Christopher’s does not have is the addition of people to help the main character. “Every hero needs a helper, much like every superhero needs a sidekick.”
No one during the entirety of the story was truly Christopher’s ally. Siobhan was simply doing her job as a teacher to educate Christopher as a student and should not be seen as Christophers' friend. Christopher does not see the people who have helped him navigate to London his allies because he believes them to be strangers. He tells us this in Chapter; “I do not like talking to strangers.” Christopher further reinforces his belief by pulling a knife out on a stranger trying to help him in Chapter 227; “And I was sitting on the ground and the woman knelt down on one knee and she said, ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’...but she was a stranger, so I said, ‘Stand further away,’ because I didn’t like her being so close.
And I said, ‘I’ve got a Swiss Army knife and it has a saw blade and it could cut someone’s fingers off.’Due to his disapproval of strangers, Christopher doesn't make any allies during his journey, making it impossible for Christopher to have an ally or a helper to pass Step 5 for his story to be a “Hero’s Journey”. After some analysis, Christopher’s story is unmistakably not a “Hero’s Journey”, however, even though Christopher’s character nor his story was heroic, Christopher himself overcame some challenges that took guts and bravery to accomplish.
Be a hero - overcome difficult obstacles. (2021, Dec 03). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/be-a-hero-overcome-difficult-obstacles-essay
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