Literary Devices in The House of the Scorpion
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Farmer's novel is set in a not-too distant future in a world that feels just familiar enough to be unsettling and creepy. It's like our own, current world, just turned sideways. The action occurs i...
Narrator Point of View
The House of the Scorpion is told in the third person, but the narrator must be Matt's imaginary best friend. How else can we explain that we hear what he hears, see what he sees, and know what he...
Genre
Adventure When we think of "adventure," we always think of things like Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean. This book is totally at home in this crowd. There are loads of chas...
Tone
We get this story almost exclusively from Matt's perspective, and he's a guy who is under a lot of pressure. So it makes sense that this book has a lot of tension in it. Matt is often anxious and w...
Writing Style
Describing the ImaginaryFarmer's style is very imaginative, and why wouldn't it be? It is sci-fi, after all. The House of the Scorpion is loaded with awesome details and powerful images. The novel'...
What's Up With the Title?
The scorpion is the chosen symbol or crest that El Patrón uses for his family. Having a family seal is a sort of old school practice. Think medieval knights or feudal landlords. Often, even today,...
What's Up With the Ending?
All hail Matt! At the end of the novel, Matt assumes responsibility for the country of Opium after El Patrón dies. He's got a lot on his plate, and some rather intimidating shoes to fill, but stil...
Tough-o-Meter
The House of the Scorpion is a very entertaining novel, that's for sure. But it's also very complicated . Farmer's book features a lot of big issues such as cloning, the drug trade, communism, econ...
Plot Analysis
In the Beginning... Eduardo Created a CloneThe initial set-up is filled with mystery as we discover a new world through Matt, who at first knows of nothing outside his home. Things get crazy when h...
Trivia
The House of the Scorpion is a major award winner. It picked up a National Book award and it was a Newbery Honor book, just to name a couple. (Source.)Nancy Farmer's novel was actually supposed to...
Steaminess Rating
While this book has lots of violence and death and other stuff that might bump a movie into PG-13 territory, sex is pretty much nonexistent here. This is probably because Matt is a kid for the bulk...
Allusions
Genesis (the Bible) (1.1)Little House series (2.1)Pedro el Conejo (Peter Rabbit) (2.16)Señor MacGregor, character in Peter Rabbit (2.16)Virgin of Guadalupe (2.80)El Dorado (18.63)Saint Francis (16...