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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The House of the Scorpion, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Will vs. Predetermination
Scientific Ethics and Abuse
Language, Law, and Dehumanization
Abuse of Power and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
In preparation for Steven and Emilia’s wedding, the mansion is filled with flowers, ice sculptures, and new decor. Matt knows he won’t be allowed to attend the party. El Patrón determined long ago that Steven and Emilia would get married, because he wants his family to be connected to a powerful U.S. politician like Senator Mendoza. Fortunately, Steven and Emilia get along, unlike Benito and his bride, Fani.
The wedding decorations emphasize the Alacrán family’s materialism and decadence. El Patrón’s dictation of his family member’s marriages regardless of their wishes shows how he uses absolute power can exploit the lives of his family members for his own gain.
Themes
Matt continues to feel sick. He also feels lonely as Celia is distracted and Tam Lin is with El Patrón. MacGregor arrives for the wedding. Felicia drinks herself into a state of unconsciousness. Benito, Fani, and Steven arrive at the estate. Matt thinks that though Steven ignores him, at least neither he nor Emilia has ever mistreated him. Matt hides and watches the rest of the wedding guests arrive. He knows he will never be a part of this crowd like a regular human.
Matt’s remembrance of how Steven and Emilia ignored him show how he is so abused by the family he has come to appreciate benign indifference. Matt’s acknowledgement that he will never belong among the crowd at the wedding shows a divergence from his former desire to accomplish so much that these same people would forget his status as a clone.
Themes
Emilia arrives surrounded by eejit flower girls. None of the guests notice María leaving the room after she exits her family’s hovercraft. She meets up with Matt in the music room. María says she missed Matt and tells him how boring her convent school is. She is always in trouble for breaking the rules. She says the convent forbids its students to watch TV because it’s not good for their souls. Matt reminds her he does not have a soul. María says she now believes everyone, including animals and clones, has a soul.
María’s further development as a rebel is shown by her breaking of her convent’s rules and also by her divergent theological opinion that clones have souls. This belief demonstrates that she is beginning to believe more and more that Matt is an individual with rights, offering hope that she will help him in his goal to escape his abusive society.
Themes
Matt tells María about the eejit pens, Farm Patrol, and El Patrón’s heart attack. Matt asks María if she knows about clones being harvested for organs. María begins to cry, but Matt assures her El Patrón does not plan on killing him. Matt tells her one day, he’ll help run the estate, because he’s smarter than Benito and Steven, and El Patrón hates Tom. María tells him that El Patrón has arranged for her to marry Tom. Matt is outraged, but María hopes she can change Tom’s cruel personality.
Despite everything he has learned about clones, Matt still holds onto the hope that he will be able to use his free will to take a leadership role on the Farm. María’s belief in the power of her own free will over her circumstances is shown by the fact that she believes she can change Tom’s evil nature. El Patrón continues to exercise his unchecked power over the family by arranging the marriage between María and Tom.
Themes
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Matt shows María the book her mother, Esperanza, wrote. María is outraged that her mother has been alive this whole time and yet has never come back for her. Matt tells her El Patrón would never have allowed that, after all Esperanza wrote about Opium. He tells María that Aztlán hates Opium, so Esperanza may be able to come to María’s convent and rescue her.
María’s anger over Esperanza shows her continued belief in the power of one’s free will over their predetermined circumstances, because she believes that if Esperanza abandoned her family, it must be because she chose to, rather than being forced to by the injustices of Opium.
Themes
María has to leave before Emilia notices she is missing. She will not be able to see Matt tomorrow during the wedding. María kisses him on the cheek and he kisses her back before they say goodbye.
This kiss, given freely between two people who love each other, contrasts with the time Matt cruelly forced María to kiss him at the party. The gesture further emphasizes the fact that both Matt and María are maturing, and are thus beginning to fully realize their capacity for freedom and choice despite their oppressive circumstances.
Themes
Matt watches the wedding from the security footage in the computer room through a peephole in the secret passage. The room is filled with bodyguards. At the wedding, Matt sees a choir of eejits, Mr. Ortega, and El Patrón, who is flanked by Tam Lin and Daft Donald. Matt looks at the dressing room where María moves with life and energy, unlike everyone else in the room, who appear dull and unhappy.
The presence of many bodyguards in the surveillance room highlights the controlling, secretive nature of El Patrón’s estate. María is the only one who shows any happiness or excitement, emphasizing how the rest of the family is miserable and ingenuine under El Patrón’s rule.
Themes
The wedding begins and Matt can see the entire family gathered up at the altar. Both Felicia and Fani are drunk. Matt also recognizes that Benito is hopelessly stupid, and Tom is still evil. Matt watches as Emilia and Steven say their vows. Suddenly, one of bodyguards begins shouting about El Patrón. Matt sees on the footage that El Patrón is having a heart attack. Doctors rush in and Tam Lin carries El Patrón out of the room.
The descriptions of all the family members as either intoxicated, incompetent, or immoral highlights how El Patrón’s influence has corrupted the entire family. The chaos surrounding El Patrón’s heart attack shows the importance the entire society places upon his health and increases the tension of the story as it is unclear how Matt (having found out that clones are created to donate organs) will be impacted by this health crisis.
Themes
