Sara -Blog Entry #1

The first five chapters of The House of the Scorpion were really intriguing and attention grabbing. When I found out that Matt was a clone, I was curious to know what time period this book was set in because there currently isn’t cloning of humans. Although this book is fiction, realistically cloning humans would be a thing of the future, which means the setting could possibly be in the future. Throughout reading chapters one to five I was wondering where the plot was set. My first thoughts were that the story took place in Mexico on account of Matt and Celia speaking some Spanish, telling Mexican myths, and eating Mexican food.

I was awed at the fact that Rosa treated Matt so poorly, with such disgust. It occurred to me that clones aren’t considered equals to humans. This ideology of clones is similar to the movie The Island, where clones are used in organ transplants for humans in the real world. Within both plots, clones are thought of as animals or beasts. Furthermore, it struck me that there are more than one clone of Él Patron on account of the quote in chapter 1: “It’s a Matteo Alacran. They’re always left intact.” Celia isn’t Matt’s mother,but acts like a mother figure and feels very attached towards Matt. I think that Celia believes the relationship between herself and Matt is growing stronger, one day he might be taken away and she won’t be able to cope.

So far Nancy Farmer has done an excellent job of developing the characters. I was able to analyze certain character’s personalities through descriptions, actions, and events. Farmer chose to develop the characters early on in the novel so the reader could get astrong sense of which each character was and what role they had. Specifically, the passage, “Matt was appalled. If the big kids went away, María would be all alone. It was going to be dark soon, and Celia wouldn’t return for hours.” showed that Matt is caring and concerned for others safety. Interactions between characters were very clear; this gave me a better feel for how characters felt about one another. Farmer also intended to write the first five chapters to provoke and intrigue the reader. Moreover, this hooks the reader in and makes them want to keep reading in order to find out what happens next.