The theme is an overall message of a story. In the story of The House of the Scorpion, the theme or the message that the author, Nancy Farmer, tried to convey is one of friendship and choice. Throughout the novel, one was able to see all of the struggles and difficulties that Matt had to endure on his quests to gain and maintain friendships. He had tried to protect his friends.
On this journey Matt had learned much about choice. He learned that not being human was a choice that someone else had picked for him. Matt realized that being human or not being human was a choice that he was able to choose himself. Not only this, but Matt had also made the choice not to follow in El Patron's footsteps, and to be a better person as a whole. Not only this, but we were able to see how the choices of others were able to affect the protagonist.
Another theme that could be found in The House of the Scorpion is one of judgement. Through the book, Nancy Farmer attempted to deliver the message of not to judge others based on what is on the outside. If one is to judge, they should judge based on what is on the inside of the person, not based on their exterior.
There are also many smaller themes that can be found throughout the book. Nancy Farmer had tried to teach many important lessons through Matt's difficult life journey. Readers will have learned many different aspects of life that they may not have known about before.
Questions:
1. Was Nancy Farmer able to deliver the message of judgement successfully? Why or why not?
2. What are some choices that Matt had to make throughout the novel? Give three examples.
3. Did Matt make the right choice to take over Opium? Why or why not?
4. How does Matt react to the loss of his friends, who were close to being his family?
5. Do you feel that El Patron had made the right choices to use clones to live a long life? Why do you think he chose to do this?
6. Why were the people of the Big House so quick to judge Matt when they discovered that he was a clone? Why were clones frowned upon?
7. Describe Matt's friendship with Tam Lin.
8. How was Matt able to be a good person and not turn into a man like El Patron?
9. If someone were to re-write the book The House of the Scorpion, what could they do to make the messages more obvious and/or meaningful?
10. There are also smaller themes in the book such as lies and deceit, power and slavery. Give examples for each of these themes and explain how they affected Matt.
-M
2. One choice that Matt made was to disobey Celia and break the glass of a window to leave the house. He did this out of desperation for interaction with peers.
ReplyDeleteAnother choice was to trust Maria and leave the house through the secret passageway when the bodyguards were searching for him. This took courage as it involved testing the biologic lock on the door, which could have killed Matt if it had not accepted his DNA as El Patron's.
One last choice was to accept the responsibility of taking over Opium so as to break it down. This was part of his sense of duty, and right and wrong, as he knew that it would be wrong to not do it.
8. Even though Matt was an exact clone of El Patron, in the end he did not transform in to the same person. Part of this was the situation that Matt had grown up in. El Patron grew up in a life of poverty, where he watched all of his siblings died. This gave him a twisted sense of justice, which led him to drastically lengthen his life. Matt was not subjected to this life, but rather had a more varied look at the value of human life, and so made different choices in his life than what El Patron would have made.
ReplyDelete7. The reason that Matt chose Tam Lin as his body guard in the beginning of the book was not because of looks, it was because he saw the slightest bit of kindness deep down in his eye when he was looked in the eye by this massive man. Tam Lin showed Matt the oasis and taught him the secrets of El Patron. How he was evil, how almost everything worked. Their relationship seem pretty decent. They even enjoyed milk and cookies together. They where a team.
ReplyDelete5. No, I think that El Patron should not have used clones to extend his life span. Clones are technically speaking human in all aspects except for the fact that they have no mother of father. The only relation they have is their older selves. I Think El Patron chose to extend his life in this way because he thought, well there is no better DNA match then my own and the organs for any needed transplant would be a perfect match as well. I do not believe that Matt was supposed to have a conscious mind so that he would have an opinion to object against giving his organs to his older dieing self.
ReplyDelete6. because he is a clone and clones are no better then the animals found on a farm.
ReplyDeleteHe choose to break the glass window and get out.
ReplyDelete