Although the book title contains the name of an animal, I am surprised at the excessive use of animal imagery and comparison in Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion. Most of the characters introduced in the first fourteen chapters are matched with animal attributes through simile and idioms.
Being less than human, the clone Matt Alacrán garners the majority of the associations to the animal kingdom. At the beginning of Chapter 10, María says Matt is “like a wild animal” hiding in his room “like a bear in a cave” (92). At this point, he has “accepted his status now” as a true animal in the eyes of the humans. After Tom (who is called an “unnatural little weevil” on several occasions) tears an ear from Matt’s stuffed bear, the miserable clone cries on the floor making “snuffling noises like a pig” (67).
María’s poor dog Furball receives a great deal of attention from its owner and the narrative throughout this first section. Initially, the little girl equates Matt’s silence and disturbed mental state to when her pet was captured by the dogcatcher. Later, Matt is disheartened to realize that people thought “he and Furball were the same,” both “a dumb beast” who “couldn’t understand the difference between right and wrong” (85). Once Tom can no longer harass Matt, he moves onto tormenting the dog as his next targeted creature.
El Patrón is naturally associated with the scorpion of his estate, but he is also mentioned in other animal references. During his birthday party tale, the patriarch talks about how he and his siblings “rolled in the dirt like pigs” (101). On the same page, the speech concludes with his own feeling that he’s “a cat with nine lives” (101).
In the scene where Matt breaks his silence, Teacher starts to “whimper like a frightened animal” until Tam Lim grabs her “in a bear hug” (73). As soon as he recognizes that she is an eejit, he comforts her as a “poor, sad creature” (73). Even the human Rosa turns primal, when she bares “her teeth like a wild animal” (56) after the doctor betrays her to El Patrón over the recent treatment of Matt.
From being created via cow to making insects his companions to riding a chip-implanted horse, Matt is continually related to the animal kingdom. The lowly eejits are even further down the food chain. And humans are creatures as well, but only are called by their savagery when they live unnatural lives (like the 143-year-old El Patrón) or give into their anger-filled feelings (like Tom or Rosa). Through it all, this story begins to question what should be considered “animal” and which emotions push us further from humanity.
