Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20698
Title: The Curious Transformation of Boy to Computer
Contributor(s): Shaw, Janice  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2016
Open Access: Yes
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20698
Open Access Link: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1130Open Access Link
Abstract: Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' has achieved success as "the new 'Rain Man'" or "the new definitive, popular account of the autistic condition" (Burks-Abbott 294). Integral to its favourable reception is the way it conflates the autistic main character, the fifteen-year-old narrator Christopher Boone, with the savant, or individual who exhibits both neurological problems and giftedness, thereby engaging with the way autism is presented in popular culture. In a variety of contemporary films and television series, autism has been transformed from a disability to a form of giftedness by relating it to abilities associated in contemporary media with a genius, in particular by invoking the metaphor of an autistic mind as a type of computer. As a result, the book engages with the current association of giftedness in mathematics and science with social awkwardness and isolation as constructed in popular culture: in idiomatic terms, the genius "nerd" figure characterised by an uncertain, adolescent approach to social contact (Kendall 353). The disablement of the character is, then, lessened so that the idea of being "special," continually evoked throughout the text, has a transformative function that is related less to the special needs of those with a disability and more to the common element in adolescent fiction of longing for extraordinary power and control through being a special, gifted individual.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: M/C Journal, 19(4), p. 1-2
Publisher: Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty
Place of Publication: Australia
ISSN: 1441-2616
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200525 Literary Theory
200503 British and Irish Literature
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 470514 Literary theory
470504 British and Irish literature
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950203 Languages and Literature
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130203 Literature
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

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