Reading The House of the Scorpion, the first book of the Matteo Alacrán series, by Nancy Farmer, a fictional and futuristic dystopian society ruled by aristocrats. It takes place in a newly created country called Opium which separates the USA and Aztlán (formerly Mexico). It was constructed due to a trade between the two bordering countries and rich drug lords. The deal included: The USA and Mexico would give rich drug lords a vast amount of land to grow drug crops to sell to European, Asian, and African countries in exchange for keeping illegal immigrants from transporting from one country to another and the restriction drug sales in their countries. The main character, Matteo Alacrán, is a clone to the king of Opium, El Patron. He was harvested inside a cow and grew off of a piece of skin …show more content…
In the text, a girl named Emilia, one of the children who helped discover the writing, stated, “That’s disgusting. Clones aren't people… It makes me feel goosebumps. I got its blood on me…” (Farmer 26). This leads to the main conflict which is the usage of brain-dead clones known as eejits. These beings are forced to work as slaves and only commit action they are told. For example, if someone were to tell them to get a horse on command they would, or if someone even told them to drink water or eat food they would only if told to even if they were starving or dehydrated. Consequently, the universal message of this story happens to be how people are not born evil, but they become evil due to other factors like power and wealth. This is why El Patron is abusing clones in inhumane ways—because he wants to gain control of power and create a monopoly off of drug crops. Next, I enjoyed how the author used foreshadowing in her novel create suspense around Tam Lin. This comes in the form of a letter that reads: “El Patron says I have to go with