The Curious Incedent of the Dog in the Night-time: Mirroring Poem & Explanation

 Authors Note: This is a poem written to mirror the events of the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", by Mark Haddon, and a few paragraphs to explain how it connects to the book, and hopefully helps you understand the book. Any constructive criticism would be helpful, so pleas comment.

A single boy,

Struck by tragedy,

His heart damaged and painful,

Finds himself,

Within his father’s resolve,

And masked by his own anger.

He sets out,

To find the truth,

And breaks down again,

Only to find what he was looking for,

Among the ruins,

Of his broken heart.

He brushes away the ashes,

And finally he can see,

Clearly the secrets,

Which his father had kept,

Of his mother,

Who he thought was dead,

And the criminal,

Who started this chain reaction.

He breaks free,

Of the iron chains,

That bound him,

With his newfound key,

Formed from realization,

And forged in the fire of rage.

But sometimes a warm fire,

Can bring people together around it,

And as they bask in the flames,

They realize they’re not so different,

And that they need each other.

This poem was created to mirror the events of the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time”, by Mark Haddon.

The book starts with the main character, Christopher, stumbling across his neighbor’s dog who was murdered the night before. He was upset and mad, and ended up punching a policeman, only to be calmed by his father. This is accurately mirrored by the first stanza, where the boy is faced with a tragedy and is mad, but his father calms him down some.

Later, he tries to discover what happened, and angers his father, who takes his notes on the mystery and hides them. When he looks for the book, he not only finds it, but he also finds out the truth about who killed wellington, and finds out that his mother, who the thought was dead, is actually alive and has been writing him letters. This is shown in the second and third stanzas, where the boy tries to find the truth, but then breaks down, and finds the truth while he is still sad.

Next, near the end of the book, Christopher decides to leave his dad, who murdered his neighbor’s dog, and go live with his mother, but it’s really hard, and his dad tracks him down. In the end, his mother and father are fighting, but they realize that they really do make a good pair and the book ends happily.  The last two stanzas replicate the feeling perfectly, showing how he broke free and went on his own, but in their anger, the family is brought together.

This poem is an accurate representation of the book and hopefully is helpful in understanding it. It was based off the book, but it’s possible that it’s good enough that people could easily start thinking about the chicken and the egg, and which came first.