The House Of Scorpion Character Analysis

In the novel “The house of Scorpion” by Nancy Farmer the novel begins with the main character Matt, who is a young boy “clone”. The novel follows Matt’s difficult journey to finding his identity. Matt is a very timid and lonely character who in a way doesn’t know who or what he is. He doesn’t know where he came from or who gave birth to him. All he knows is Celia his caretaker shelters him away from everybody. As the novel progresses, we see that Matt is a clone of El Patron a merciless drug lord who is feared by everyone. There are many themes that are presented in this novel, but one that stood out the most is the theme of identity. Identity is an immense concept that first appeared when everyone found out that Matt was El Patron’s clone. As Matt grows up, he has to climb out of the norms that everyone set for him, that he is an exact copy of El Patron and isn’t an individual. …show more content…
When Matt was riding on through the road, he sees a dead Ejit lying next to a tree. The first thought that came into his mind was “Can’t we can’t we help him?” (77). From that statement we get to see that Matt is a caring person even though he is supposed to be an exact copy of a merciless drug lord. With that we see Matt’s own characteristic of an individual and not a clone. As Matt was riding away from the dead Ejit Nancy Farmer described him with tears in his eyes “Matt looked back, tears stinging his eyes” (77) as he had to abandon someone. It could be argued that Matt was just a kid and didn’t know that the man was dead, but as Tam Lin explained to Matt that the man was dead more questioned arose in his mind “Why was he being left out there like a piece of trash” (78). With this incident we get to realize that even though Matt is a clone of El Patron, he still has some of his own characteristics that make Matt who he