Final Paper Brainstorming

Curious Incident:

• All facts about father come from Christopher
• Christopher doesn’t seem to really care about other people’s emotions, so we have to make a lot of inferences
• Very separated from all of the other characters

Persuasion:

• All facts about Anne come from the characters around her
• Author doesn’t offer any explicit details about anne, past the fact that she is considered plain, and we learn about her from her experiences
• other characters all represent a specific idea
• walter=vanity
• mary=irritating
• anne is shown as being patient
• FFree Indirect Discourse (FID) – allows Austen to blend consciousnesses in the novel
• All other characters are almost a “part” of the main character

Thesis:

• So what is the connections
• Different writing styles
• Curious incident = 1^st person
• Reliable?
• Persuasion = 3^rd 
• What does this difference do for the author’s representation of the characters
•  Both go about their conveying the main character in completely different ways
• Yet we still feel like we have a very firm grasp of both anne and christopher’s father by the end of the book
• ·         Answer: empathy
  o   In both novels, the author relies on the reader’s ability to empathize with the characters of the story in order for their character developments to be conveyed.
  o   Even though both novels approach this task from completely different ends of the spectrum, they both are able to achieve the feat of characterization through this idea of reader empathy
• 
  

·         Thesis: While Austen relies on the clear depiction of secondary characters to express the characterization of the protagonist, Anne, in Persuasion, Haddon takes a different approach and relies on the social interactions of the main character, Christopher, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, to highlight details about the secondary characters, namely Christopher’s father. The power behind these two approaches to characterization is reliance on reader empathy. By developing scenarios that cause readers to feel empathy for the main character, these authors allow one to make personal connections to the characters on the basis of human experience with emotion, social interaction, and personal conflict. Even though Austen and Haddon approach characterization of Anne and Christopher’s father from completely different ends of the spectrum, both are able to successfully and effectively paint a picture of their respective characters by relying on these specific factors of reader empathy.

·         Social Interaction:

o   Anne

§  Mary representing irritation -> shows Anne’s patience

§  Walter (Father) represents vanity -> shows Anne’s modesty

§  Audience relates to the situation of finding a loved one annoying, but being forced to put up with it because you care for them

§  Audience relates to the situation of disapproval from a parent, and realizes that Anne’s reaction takes a great deal of stamina -> expresses her modesty

o   Christopher’s father

§  Breathing through nose -> Christopher doesn’t understand what this means

·         but readers do and pick up on this, despite Christopher’s inability

·         Personal Conflict:

o   Anne

§  Captain Wentworth -> shows Anne’s humility

§  Audience relates to the struggle of being in love with someone who does not love you back, and the fact that Anne hides this so well and respects the relationship between Wentworth and Louisa shows a great deal of humility

o   Christopher’s father

§  becomes clear that Christopher’s mother left her father because she could not deal with Christopher’s unpredictable behavior anymore -> Christopher speaks of this without seeming to care. In fact, he still ventures out and seeks his mother, despite the fact that his father is the one who has cared for him for all these years

·         audience sees the personal conflict of the father, and the fact that he loves his son. Even though he killed Wellington, this is easily brushed aside by the audience who see the true sacrifice that christopher’s father has made, while Christopher is hung up on the fact that his father committed a crime, and is unable to understand why this is not the most important thing

·         -> can tie into the next idea of emotion from here…

·         Emotion:

o   Anne

§  Hysteria and emotion result from other characters when Louisa falls and hits her head, knocking her unconscious -> demonstrates Anne’s level-headedness and ability to be rational in a emotionally unstable situation

·         Audience relates to the fact that emotional situations can prevent one from thinking clearly

o   Christopher’s father

§  Christopher’s inability to recognize human emotions in other characters

§  Christopher doesn’t realize that his father’s silence actually expresses his anger

·         In the car on the way home from the police station

·         When he finds the book

·         Audience relates to this feeling of anger, potentially even imagining a time where they were so angry they were silent