Background of the Study
force 363. Worchel and Cooper, in their book Understanding Social Psychology, state that there are two types of conflicts they are interpersonal and intrapersonal
conflict 460. Jones and Gerard say that intrapersonal conflict is a conflict within an individual because of incompatibility within himself, whereas Raven and
Kruglanski see interpersonal conflict as tension between two or more social entities, such as; individual, groups, or larger organizations, which arise from
incompatibility of actual or desired responses qtd. in worchel and cooper 460. Based on the definition of conflict above, it can be concluded that inner conflict
and external conflict which are found in literary context have the same meaning as intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict in the context of psychology.
Conflicts can also be portrayed in literary works, such as a novel, because literary works are other copied versions of human reality in real life. Therefore,
they portray realities of human life. Conflicts make a story become more interesting and fascinating to the readers Hudson 10.
A novel entitled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time by Mark Haddon portrays conflicts faced by a boy who suffers from mental disorder. It
happens to Christopher, the main character in Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
He is an autistic boy who also faces many conflicts in his life. As an autistic boy he has unique behavior which is different
from the normal boys. He has his own ways of doing certain actions in his life and the ways he interacts to other people around him are quite different from normal
people. He also has certain unique ways in facing the problem. It is challenging to analyze the way he solves the conflict that he faces. It will be interesting to see
how Christopher, an autistic boy, solves his conflict with other people around him.
The story tells about a 15 year-old boy named Christopher who is autistic. He lives with his father, a heating contractor. He lives in Swindon, a city in England.
One day he finds his neighbors dog named Wellington killed. Since he loves it, it is important for him to find the murderer. He decides to solve the mystery.
However his father wants Christopher to stay away from a problem. Although his father forbids him to do the investigation, Christopher still keeps continuing the
investigation. He also writes his investigation about the incident of the dog in a book.
In the beginning of the story Christopher has a conflict with a policeman who asks him some questions about the death of Wellington. It makes him confused
because the policeman asks him many questions quickly. Finally, he hits the policeman because he does not like being touched by the policeman. He also faces
a conflict with his father. One day, Christopher forgets that he has put his book on the table in the kitchen. His father finds and reads the book. He is really angry
with Christopher and throws away the book. Christopher searches his book in his fathers room. Accidentally, He finds some letters from his mother. He is really
surprised to know that his mother is still alive but his father tells him that his mother has passed away. His father also admits that he kills the dog. His
confession makes Christopher frightened because for him, a murderer is a bad person and he should be punished. He decides to live with his mother. He starts a
remarkably brave experience by going to London to find his mother. Finally he PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
finds his mother and lives with her. But one day, he has to go back to his home town to do his A math level. He goes back to his hometown with his mother
because he is still afraid of his father. At the end of the story he succeeds in doing his A math level.
This novel uses the first person “I”. The narrator creates a character in which he puts himself as the autistic boy. From this novel, we can see what it is like to
be an autistic boy because by reading this novel it seems that we explore the world of autism by ourselves. We can also see Christophers perception and
feelings about things that happen in his life. I believe that this novel is very interesting to analyze because it does not only show us how an autistic boy
behaves in his daily life but also how an autistic boy behaves in solving the conflicts.