Abuse of Power and Corruption Theme Analysis

In The House of the Scorpion, Matt encounters two very different systems of government: his home country of Opium, where all power is centered around one individual (El Patrón), and the orphanage in the neighboring country of Aztlán, where every individual is required to labor for the collective good of society. Despite their differences in the distribution of power, both systems are corrupt and abusive. While El Patrón exploits his family, his clones, and his workers for his own greed, the Keepers of Aztlán oppress the orphaned Lost Boys and Girls with principals they themselves do not follow. Each system shows how different types of governments can corrupt authority to exploit the most vulnerable. As Matt ascends to power as the new leader of Opium, he decides to help, rather than abuse, those beneath him. Thus, the ending of the novel offers hope that one can wield power justly if one chooses to uplift the formerly oppressed.

The country of Opium concentrates power in a highly individualistic society. Specifically, all power is held by one individual, El Patrón. He uses his power to exploit his family, clones, and workers, all in the service of his own desires, regardless of the costs to others. This shows how a centralized, authoritarian government facilitates a single corrupt leader serving his own greed. As both a leader of a country and the patriarch of a family, El Patrón dictates his family members’ lives to the point of arranging the marriages of his children in order to solidify political alliances for his empire. He does not care about the opinions of those getting married, as shown by Benito being married to a woman he hates, or the kind María being married to the cruel Tom. As María herself says, all the family must listen to him because he is in charge. This shows how an individual can abuse absolute power in order to disregard the wishes of others and serve his own desires. When confronted at the end of his life with the details of all of the clones he has killed for organ transplants and the eejits he has killed to build his drug empire, El Patrón says he is owed all those lives because his siblings died young. This demonstrates how one powerful individual can create a narrative to justify their exploitation of others. The amount of lives lost to build up El Patrón and his empire shows how destructive greed can become when in the hands of a corrupt power.

Unlike the country of Opium, where all power is centered on one individual, Aztlán supposedly operates on collectivist, Marxist principals of every individual working for the common good of society. However, the Keepers, the leaders who are in charge of the orphans of illegal immigrants caught before they can make it to Aztlán, exploit the orphans, also known as the Lost Boys and Girls, by using these collective principals to justify forced labor. This shows how power can be abused in even a collectivist government, when the powerful are still allowed to oppress the vulnerable. From the moment Matt falls into the hands of the Keepers, Keepers like Raúl berate him with slogans celebrating the collective good, such as “The orderly production of resources is vital to the general good of the people” and “work is freedom. Freedom is work. It’s hard but it’s fair.” However, Matt comes to realize the Keepers themselves do not do any actual work, as they order the Lost Boys around while living in luxury and taking large amounts of drugs. This shows that corrupt authority figures can manipulate language in order to create a system which benefits some and not others. The Keepers abuse the Lost Boys by making them work long hours of hard labor and denying them food if they fail to meet their high quotas. While the system is supposed to promote a good life for all, the Keepers oppress those who have no one to stand up for them, because they are orphans in a foreign country. This shows how corrupt authority figures can exploit even the most theoretically fair system by abusing those without power.

Matt watches both El Patrón’s individualist, authoritarian system in Opium and the Keepers’ hypocritical, collectivist system in Aztlán fall due to their own corruption. Afterward, he becomes Opium’s new leader, a position he intends to use to free the eejits from their slavery. This offers hope that a government can wield power without abuse or corruption, if that government decides to protect, rather than exploit, its most vulnerable groups. Matt sees both regimes of Opium and the Keepers fall due to their own corruption. Because El Patrón believed his family all belonged to him and his country should not continue after his death, he poisons every single one of his family members. The country falls in lockdown until Matt can return to it. The Keepers of Aztlán fall after the Lost Boys rebel against their cruelty and tell the rest of Aztlán about their abuses. Both these downfalls show that not only is a corrupt government highly abusive, it is unsustainable in the long run. At the end of the novel, Matt, being the clone of El Patrón, becomes the de facto leader of Opium after El Patrón and his entire family’s death. As Matt returns to Opium, he observes the eejits out in the poppy fields and decides he will free them from their constant labor and attempt to reverse the process that made them into mindless workers. This ending demonstrates how one can rule without abuse or corruption, if one remembers to protect and uplift the least powerful members of society.

When Matt returns to Opium at the end of the novel to take control as its leader, he has the potential to reinstate the authoritarian, corrupt, abusive rule of El Patrón. But Matt knows he will not make that immoral choice to exploit everyone around him for his own gain. Nor will he model the hypocritical, corrupt, exploitative rule of the Keepers. Instead, Matt intends to right the wrongs of El Patrón’s rule by freeing the enslaved eejits, thus showing how a government can stand above abuse of power and corruption, if it chooses to help the most disenfranchised members of society.