Setting

In any book, the setting can reveal many important elements that contribute heavily to the plot or themes of the story. After reading up to page 29 of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", I can conclude many things about the setting of this novel. The first indication of the setting came early on, where the description of a yard with a fence and a gate in a neighborhood, hinted that it was a suburban area. This house belonged to the main character's neighbor and is where the opening scene takes place. In this scene, Christopher, the main character, finds the neighbor's dog, Wellington, dead on the front lawn. This is how I pictured the dog in my head based on his description, which Christopher gives clearly. I just thought I would give you some reference because the dog is such an important factor of the book and will be mentioned a lot through these blogs posts. 

The next indication of the setting that I got was during a scene in the police station where Christopher was taken after he hit a cop. "This is what I had in my pockets... £1.47 (this was made up of a £1 coin, a 20p coin, two 10p coins, a 5p coin, and a 2p coin)" (pg13). This clearly shows that the story takes place in the United Kingdom since he possesses the UK currency, pounds. So far, I have been able to conclude that the setting is in the UK in a suburban neighborhood, but I was unable to figure out the time period. I am assuming since the book was published in 2003, that that is the year this story takes place. 

Since the book is based off the murder of a dog, a quote on page 21 sparked my interest to do some research based on the animal abuse laws in the UK in 2003. Christopher was replaying the scene of finding Wellington's body in his head when he said to his father, "I wonder if the police will find out who killed him and punish the person". On the pervious page, his father responded to his obsession with finding out who killed the dog by saying "It's a bloody dog, Christopher, a bloody dog"(pg 20). Again, since we know this was set in the UK we know he wasn't referring to the dog's actual blood, rather emphasizing the fact that it was just a dog, and less important than a human. After reading this, I found that a big change in the laws of animal welfare in the UK occurred in 2006 with the Animal Welfare Act which gave many rights to animals, including more strict laws against cruelty. Since we are assuming this book takes place in 2003, maybe the laws weren't as strict and people didn't weigh killing a dog as heavy as that of a human. If you are an animal lover and are interested in reading about the laws in the UK, this is the source I used. 

This is how I pictured his neighborhood.

Stay tuned for more!