Celia Characterization- Nick

Celia (Nick)

The book House of the Scorpion has given us many unique characters each with there own personality and mystery surrounding them. I will be specifically focusing on Celia, the caretaker of Matt. Early in the novel I was unsure if she was Matt’s mother or if she was just someone who was just taking care of him.  Farmer made me think that she was just a caretaker when farmer wrote “the woman said.”. This made me think that she was not a mother. After that Farmer made Celia more of a mother to Matt when she had Celia cuddling with Matt The most surprising part was when Celia said “¡Callate! Shut up! Do you want to make me deaf? You’re just a little kid with cornmeal for brains!” This whole quote made me think that she was a sister who was made to take care of her little brother. I am sure that a mother would never say “ You’re just a little kid with cornmeal for brains!” to her son. You can make a great inference on Celia’s personality from this little excerpt from the novel. Something that I take away is that  she can really get frustrated easily, this really solidified my guess that she was just his caretaker because I know that a mother would be used to this and not get frustrated that easily. I believe that Celia is right now in between a round and a flat character because Farmer does talk about where she came from through items such as the candle and statue. Though there is still mystery surrounding her. I actually have a strange feeling about the relationship between Celia and Matt, I do not know if Celia is going to have nothing more to do with Matt because he feels as if she abandoned him, or if as the novel progresses Matt is freed and goes back to life with Celia. Celia to me is a very dynamic character, as she goes through many phases during the novel. She started out being a loving and caring person who loved Matt, but quickly changed when Matt started screaming. That scene alone makes me think the she is a very tempered individual. It is going to be very interesting throughout the novel to see if she will care for Matt if or when he is freed from the “Big House” or if she will be mad and reject him. Celia’s role in the novel in my opinion will be short lived and she will soon have less and less of an impact on the novel. After the novel is done with where Matt came from and why Celia had him I think she will be gone and the novel will focus on the relationship between Matt and Maria. This really shows that Celia was a very round and dynamic character in the first part of the novel but is not a key to developing the plot. In my opinion. Overall Celia is so far a round and dynamic supporting character who has some sort of relationship, good or bad, with everybody in the novel.v