The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer, is a tale that is in
the not-so-far future, set in the country of Opium, a very small strip
of land between the U.S and Aztlan. Formally called Mexico. Illegal
aliens of Opium get chips implanted into their brains, rendering them
thoughtless, these zombies are called eejits. Matt, whose full name is
Matteo Alacran, is an exact genetic copy of the 142 year old drug lord,
known as El Patron. Matt is almost six years old, living in an isolated
house in the middle of opium-growing poppy fields with his guardian
Celia. One day children appear outside the window to play, and Matt breaks the window and jumps out, landing on the glass shards. The
kids take him to the big house on the Alacran estate, where Mr. Alacran
recognizes him to be a clone and leaves Rosa, a maid, in charge of
"it." She imprisons him in a room filled with sawdust, only coming in to
bring him leftover food. Maria finds him after about six months and tells El
Patron of Matt's conditions. He punishes Rosa and tells everyone to treat
Matt well. Tam Lin, one of El Patrons body guards, is sworn to
keep Matt safe. Matt is educated and is taught piano, guitar and singing. Everybody ignores him, and only Celia, Tam Lin, Maria and El Patron seem
to care about him. Later, Matt discovers what the clones' real purpose
is, to provide extra organs to prolong powerful people like El Patron's life. He convinces himself El Patron wouldn't have wasted resources educating him if he was just for spare parts. To prove him wrong, at Emilia's and Stephen's wedding El Patron has a heart attack and Matt is brought to the hospital too. El Patron thinks Matt owes him for providing him with the life he himself never had, but when Celia says she poisoned Matt with enough arsenic to make his heart too unstable for transplant, El Patron has a second heart attack and dies. Then there's no use for his clone, so Tam Lin is ordered to dispose of him, but he secretly sends him to Aztlan to find Maria and her mother in San Luis. When Matt crosses the border of Aztlan the farm patrol take him to a plankton processing plant near San Luis, where there are other orphan boys. The keepers are very abusive to the boys so Matt leads a rebellion after he escapes from "The Boneyard." The orphans travel to Esperanza's convent where she declares Opium is in a state of lock down and only Matteo Alacran's DNA can override the system. When he enters Opium, Celia tells him everyone, including Tam Lin got poisoned at El Patron's funeral. He had wanted everyone to die with him. Since the original Matteo Alacran is dead, Matt is forced into the position of lord of Opium, but he will not trod in El Patron's footsteps!
Although there are many, one of the main themes in the house of the
scorpion is that you must let past happenings go. One example of this
is when Matt and Tam Lin are at a picnic and Tam Lin states, "I was a
proper fool, I turned my back on my family, and the the thing that
brought me here"(138). that "thing" was killing twenty children. Later,
he practically committed suicide because of the guilt. Another example
is when Celia was beating herself up about following a coyote."What an
idiot I was! Those people don't help you go anywhere. They lead you
straight to the farm Patrol"(142). My third and final example is when El
Patron was on his deathbed." 'There were eight of us,'the old man
cried.'We should have all grown up, but I was the only survivor. I am
meant to have those lives! I am meant to have justice!'"(233) Even El
Patron has deep regrets, and I think him being the only surviving
sibling took a toll on him. These three examples show that it is
important not to dwell on the past.
This book was very interesting to me and I'm very glad that I read it. I would definitely recommend this to 8th graders and maybe other 7th graders. I
love science-fictiony, futuristic books, and one of the special things
about this book was Nancy Farmer creates real problems in a future that
might not be that far away, instead of unrealistic technology, alien wars, or
robots. It surprised me with the heroin poppy field and drug lord
stuff because it is for school. Nevertheless she developed the
characters very thoroughly and the plot was very interesting. It was a
really great book and I cannot wait to start the sequel, The Lord of
Opium!
One thing that I found very prominent in this book was greed. This is not a theme, but something that kept on popping up throughout the story. A few examples of this is when El Patron was being buried in his tomb of gold coins and other riches. His own bodyguards fill their pockets with gold, even though they get killed by the poisoned wine a few hours later. Also, El Patron killed all of the Alacrans, bodyguards, and everybody at the big house because he was greedy. He thought, and very wrongly so, that because he was going to die, everyone else should die with him. My last example is how El Patron was willing to murder Matt just for his heart. You spend this time practically watching yourself grow up just to kill the innocent teenager so you can live longer? Lets admit it, El Patron was one messed up man, but maybe this is just another unfortunate example that power can corrupt people. I think that there were so many lessons to be learnt in this book, and greed is one that I really noticed.
