Jennifer's Second Blog Post

So far in the story (Chapters 1-9) I think the thing that interests me most is the setting of the novel, especially what is considered "right" or legal. For instance on page 82 Tam Lin tells Matt that eejits, people with implants in their brain, work long hours and can't do anything else until the foreman tells them to. Right now if something like that happened it would be considered highly illegal, but in this setting it seems like the norm. I think in some ways the setting has reverted to using rules from an older time period when the rights of other humans didn't matter if they were below you. For instance slavery in the 1700's and the time period of House of the Scorpion are very similar. If people dropped dead no one really cared.

One thing that made me want to keep reading was the idea of finding out what time period the book was set in, or where it was set. I like that the author didn't give a specific year, and let you formulate your own ideas on the time period. Like when I said before, the ethics seem old fashioned, but the items they have in everyday life indicates that it is in fact a later time period. When I slowly pieced together where exactly this was taking place, it really kept me interested.

If this had happened in another country things might be completely different. If this story took place in somewhere like the United States there might not be as many eejits, or if it took place in Canada El Patron might not be growing opium. If he wasn't growing opium he might not have been rich enough to go against the law and keep a clone with an intact mind. Then the story line wouldn't really work out well because Matt's mind would be destroyed, and he would barely be able to perform simple tasks. The area that Nancy Farmer chose for the setting (Northern Mexico) is worked deeply into the story, and it affects many elements of it.