The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime Honesty Analysis

Many people wonder is it wrong to lie or are there some situation where lying is the best option? In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, Mark Haddon shifts Christopher’s outlook on honesty and changed his outlook dramatically. Many people, including Christopher, believe in the statement “honesty is the best policy.” However while Christopher becomes more independent, he realizes that in some situations being dishonest might be the best answer. When his father lies to Christopher, Christopher follows his father’s actions and starts to comprehend when he must lie. Throughout the course of Christopher’s life, he begins to realize that lying is not always the wrong thing to do.

Christopher’s initial motto were alone the lines of, honesty is the best policy. Christopher said to the officer, “’Yes I always tell the truth.’” (Haddon 18) which strongly implies that he truly values honesty. Christopher “[does not] tell lies” (Haddon 19) and his mother tells him it’s because he was a good person. Christopher was never able to lie in his life for specific reasons. Although he admits that he white lies, he says that white lying is inevitable. Christopher avoids lying to

While trying to get money, Christopher gets in contact with a police officer who was curious how he would get to London. Christopher replies with, "I have a cashpoint card, and I took it out of my pocket and I showed it to him. And this was a white lie.” (Haddon 150). Following that lie Christopher also says, "’He told me the number,’ which was another white lie.” (Haddon 150). Christopher only told 1 white lie in the book prior to the incident with his dad. However, after the incident he white lies twice to the same person who is surprisingly a police officer. Christopher always listened to his father, but one lie changed his perspective of his father that would become hard to