The House of the Scorpion
By Nancy Farmer
“Matteo Alacran was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patron, lord of a country called Opium— a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster— except for El Patron. El Patron loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.
As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patron's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacran Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.” --- Story Description (Back of the Book)
Major Characters:
The Alacran Family:
Matt: The main protagonist and clone of El Patron
El Patron: Powerful Drug lord of Opium and original Matteo Alacran
Mr. Alacran: Great Grandson of El Patron
Felicia: Wife of Mr. Alacran
El Viejo: Father of Mr. Alacran
Steven: Second son of Mr. Alacran
Benito: Oldest son of Mr. Alacran
Tom: Son of Felicia and Mr. MacGregor
Other Important characters:
Celia: Raised Matt, mother figure to him
Maria: Youngest daughter of Senator Mendoza and friend of Matt
Emilia: Eldest daughter of Senator Mendoza
Senator Mendoza: US senator and father of Emilia and Maria
Tam Lin: One of the Bodyguards of El Patron, befriends Matt
Daft Donald: Other main bodyguard of El Patron
MacGregor: Drug lord and friend of El Patron
“Matt thought he could make María understand if he ever got to see her. She’d forgive him because he was a dumb animal and didn’t know any better. But Tam Lin had called Matt a human and expected much more from him. Humans, Matt realized, were a lot harder to forgive.” – Pg 138
The above quote truly captures the different feelings people have about clones, some view them as animals while others view them as other humans.
Below is a brief overview of modern Genetic Engineering in humans:
Human Genetic Engineering
“Human genetic engineering can be used to treatgenetic disease, but there is a difference between treating the disease in an individual and changing the genome that gets passed down to that person's descendants (germ-line genetic engineering).
Human genetic engineering is already being used on a small scale to allow infertile women with genetic defects in theirmitochondriato have children. Healthy human eggs from a second mother are used. The child produced this way has genetic information from two mothers and one father. The changes made are germ line changes and will probably be passed down from generation to generation, and, thus, are a permanent change to the human genome.
Human genetic engineering has the potential to change human beings' appearance, adaptability, intelligence, character, and behavior. It may potentially be used in creating more dramatic changes in humans.There are many unresolved ethical issues and concerns surrounding this technology, and it remains a controversial topic.” -Wikipedia