Post #2, Setting

Farmer has made this fictional novel "the House of the Scorpion" into a totally realistic and believable place. Her intense use of word vocabulary gives you tangible spaces like the various rooms in the Alacran household to the vibrant, colourful oasis that Matt and Tam Lin travel to. As I have read, Opium, the region in which Matt has grown up in, is a futuristic outlook on what was once Mexico. This is the first clue to readers that Matt's world is concentrated in the future years of mankind. Another way for readers to establish this is how El Patron is able to clone himself along with turning capable people into hard-working zombies. The chapter "Celia's Story"described Aztlan, Opium and the United States from her perspective and gets the reader to understand an outside view of what each place is like. Within the mysterious region of Opium, we have the Alacran estate and of course, the opium fields. In Matt's description, the estate is easily pictured in my mind by the recognizable red tile roofs and the white cement that surrounds it. I would definitely agree with Matt when he thinks of the house, "like a giant birthday cake covered with frosting."  When Matt first ventures into the fields of poppies with Tam Lin, he sees every vivid detail to the poppies and the outstretched land before him. Once Matt crawls underneath the hole in the mountain, it becomes a completely different place. The water sparkles, the wildlife stirs and it welcomes Matt to explore and forget his worries. I think Farmer wanted this place to exist because it would bring relief to Matt. In this little world, he could learn, think and feel wanted. The piano was also a way for Matt to escape from reality, as when he played his mind pushed away the truth that he was a clone. Overall, the setting seems to develop as we continue with "the House of the Scorpion", and provides us to use our imagination to plan out where each and every detail is positioned.

~Paige