Matt Characterization- Edward

Matt (Edward):

The house of the Scorpion has now introduced a number of key characters in the first five chapters. I will be speaking out on Matt the cloned character who lives in a shack in the opium fields. Matt is a clone, he is cloned after the powerful El Patron a notorious drug dealer. In the world that Farmer has established clones are split in a petri dish and then implanted in cows. We quickly become aware that clones are not accepted in this world that farmer has created at all. For instance “You idiot, you need a vet for this little beast.” Was quoted from the novel once the characters found out Matt was a clone. Matt is a six year old at this point in the novel, we will infer that based on the table of contents that clones only live to the age of 14 or fifteen. Matt also is the protagonist of this novel and has been established as a very round character. Specifically in the novel Matt is explained through a number of means that will be explained later and we already start to see change in him from a shy state to a more outgoing and complex personality. For instance Matt had always hidden away and now he is having full conversations and interactions with characters and he finding Independence in him self when we find him locked away.

We notice that Matt seems to be quite a crafty individual and he can find entertainment in the smallest of things. For instance in the novel we notice that wen Matt got locked into the big house he found many things to keep him interested and to play with. These include rotten food to attract bugs various other animals, some would describe these actions on border land insane however this attests to the intelligence of Matt. To support this detail at the very beginning of the novel we find that Eduardo one of the laboratory operators does not give Matt the injection to null his intelligence. This is highly key to the story overall at this point I believe because Matt’s intelligence is what could break him out of the prison that he currently find him in. At this point in the novel we simply don't know how the intelligence of Matt will play out!

Matt has become extremely central to the story thus far now besides the obvious fact that he is one of the main characters and we follow him throughout out the story, however we have now recognized the central fact that he is El Patron’s clone. We have not seen El Patron up to this point in the book however we do recognize that fact that he is central to the story because of a few main reasons. First off we can tell from the back of the novel in the synopsis that EL Patron is highly important and at the beginning of the novel we read under the character explanations that El Patron is a very powerful drug dealer. I predict a very interesting twist once El Patron has been added into the story, it will bring out a lot more depth in Matt as well.

How do you think Matt’s role will change after the story progresses? SO far Farmer has done a great job of introducing Matt as a character through a variety of methods. We learn about Matt through other characters, we learn about Matt through narration and we learn about Matt through plot development. Overall making Matt a highly developed and important character.