Edward- Setting

Setting:

Farmer has established the setting of this novel quite effectively, she did not state the setting of the novel too much but more or less implied it to us. From the first chapter of the book and the different things that Farmer established characters with (Character page, Family Tree, Background) we can infer that the time of this novel is somewhere in the future probably around 2100 (Farmer 3). We can do this because we notice the technology like cloning and computer chips in the head of the "eejits".  The location of the novel is in between the United States and Aztlan in a vast opium plantation. The people of this area are all workers who have been modified to only complete simple tasks like harvesting Opium, it is a highly miserable place as described when Matt and Tam Lin go on a picnic. Farmer has done a great job balancing explicit and implicit messages to the reader upon the setting of this novel, she provides us with enough information to make a solid inference without giving too much away. So far what has happened in the setting that gamer has created is El Patron a powerful drug lord created clones of himself, this clone named Matt finds himself in El Patron's company after a nearly fatal accident. Matt now is taking classes to learn like normal humans, something that he always faces wondering about.

There are a few main characters involved in the setting at this point, Matt himself, Tam Lin, El Patron, Rosa, Maria, Tom and Celia. Tom is the foil to Matt, Rosa is one of the antagonists however she has been dealt with, Celia was Matt's keeper before his accident and El Patron seems good to Matt right now however I believe that this will change once we read on in the novel. I believe that Farmer chooses this setting in the Opium felids because it establishes how the characters interact with each other and how they relate to each other, for instance El Patron is the head of the operation and he had cloned himself which reveals Matt. This setting makes it very simple to link the characters! Farmer uses this setting to establish a few key things in the novel, one being character development which I have spoken about and the next being the atmosphere. The setting of this novel really helps to show the miserable atmosphere of most of the book so far, Farmer does a great job on making this aspect come to life!