The House of the Scorpion - Setting

So this is my individual post on the setting of the novel.

The House of the Scorpion took place in a futuristic society in which clones are strongly discouraged and considered inhuman. I felt that Nancy Farmer described the novel in a very detailed and interesting manner. For one thing, she used different ages throughout Matt’s life to tell us what time period it was in. I don’t think it mattered what year this book started in, but I feel that it started in 2012 (keeping in mind that this book was created in 2002). The actual places that Farmer explored through this novel were incredibly well described, which made it wondrous to read. The overall setting of this novel was Opium but a little bit also took place in Aztlan. Opium was a strip of land, created to prevent illegal drugs from being sold into the United States and Aztlan, which was once known as Mexico.

Scene-specific setting includes places such as the Alacràn House, or the Big House, which is where the majority of the book takes place. It serves as his prison when he first gets to it, and later becomes his home, only to become his prison once again. It contains many rooms, such as the piano room, which introduces Matt to his love and talent for music. This room helped to show that there truly was a difference between El Patrón and Matt. Another area of the Big House that was talked about and played a role in the novel was the Secret Passage. It helped Matt discover some of the secrets that El Patrón and the rest of the Alacràn family were keeping from him, but he found out even more of these secrets at the Oasis. A major part of the Alacràn House was the prison in which Matt was forced to live. He was treated like an animal, living in a room of sawdust. Later on in the book, Matt escapes to Aztlan, with hopes of finding María. When he first reaches Aztlan however, he is taken in by the keepers who lead Matt to believe that Aztlan is a corrupt country. He is sent to the Plankton Factory in San Luis, which is where María’s hostel was, but he was trapped inside the area. This leads to his stay in the boneyard, which gave Matt more incentive to escape. Without all of these places, the story would not have played out the same way as it did.