The Father, Son, and the Holy Clone: Re-vision of Biblical Genesis in "The House of the Scorpion"

Midwest Modern Language Association

The Father, Son, and the Holy Clone: Re-vision of Biblical Genesis in "The House of theScorpion"Author(s): Ryan KerrSource: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Fall 2010),pp. 99-120Published by: Midwest Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41960529 .

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The Father, Son, and the Holy Clone:

Re-vision of Biblical Genesis

in The House of the Scorpion

Ryan Kerr

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by ture for young readers concerns an inquiry also explored by ancient and modern philosophers and religions. The inquiry,

in its most basic form, is what it means to be human. This deep con-

cern, perhaps the deepest for cognizant humans, has paradoxically been often explored in literature through the portrayal of animals.

Aesop had his animal fables based on human foibles. Beatrix Potter wrote of the anthropomorphized title character in The Tale of Peter Rabbit losing his blue coat at precisely the same moment that he is

caught succumbing to his animal urges; similarly, Asian the Lion, in C. S. Lewis's The Magicians Nephew, tells the talking beasts of Narnia that if they act as animals, then they will become merely animals once more (a threat realized in The Last Battle ). Most recently, Terry Pratchett presents a microcosm of human evolution through a community of talking rats in The Amazing Maurice and His Edu- cated Rodents. Though these stories have not joined the ranks of works written by Jean-Paul Sartre or Friedrich Nietzsche, they yet deal with many of the same existential issues of humanity.

Another fantastical novel that addresses questions of human-

ity through nonhuman entities is Nancy Farmer's The House of the

Scorpion, In this text, though, that label of nonhuman needs to be

qualified, for the humanity of the protagonist is the central question of the text. Matt, a young clone, is at the narrative center of this science fiction novel. Farmer's text tells of a dystopian future in which drugs, genetic engineering, and enslavement are the under-

pinnings of society. The novel takes place in a nation named Opium, which was created with land donated by the United States and Azt-

The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association | Fall 2010, Vol. 43, No. 2 99



100 I The Father, Son, and the Holy Clone

Ian (known to us today as Mexico) and acts as a manifest, physical border between the two countries. Opium, run by the drug lord El Patron, demonstrates the horrors of technology and inhumanity gone to a negative extreme (as many science fiction works do). Matt is cloned from the double-septuagenarian El Patron. Though cloning has become a norm in Farmer's futuristic setting, Matt is unique: the clones of everyone but El Patron are rendered unintelligent through cranial injury upon birth. El Patron's desire for his own clone to be

fully aware and intact drives the narrative. It is also this uniqueness that predicates the deep philosophical inquiry into what it means to be human. In Farmer's world, clones are despised and defined as livestock: they are not considered human by the vast majority. Matt, however, by being fully intelligent and feeling (not having the blunt-

ing of his brain completed like other clones), occupies an uncanny space: he has the full consciousness and feeling of a human, yet is still defined as nonhuman by those around him.

The exploration of Matt's questionable humanity is, of course, well suited to young adult science fiction. Elaine Ostry suggests that adolescents are most likely to consider "what it means to be human, to be an individual" (222), and science fiction constantly deals with issues of what a human is.

The House of the Scorpion represents a future in which biotech-

nology, including but not limited to cloning, has developed to an extreme. This paradigm, which has been defined by some as posthumanism, calls into question traditional thought about the boundaries between humans and technology. But Farmer's text is not naïve; it realizes that we are already in and on our way into a more thoroughly posthumanist world. The point of the novel, then, is not merely to bemoan the loss of humanism. Rather, specifically through the

portrayal of Matt, Farmer calls for a réévaluation of how we view

humanity within the paradigm of posthumanism. Farmer does not

argue that Matt, as a clone, is an aberration that should never exist; she argues that even though there is no ontological explanation for Matt in humanist thought, there needs to be a newly formed ontol-

ogy to account for him in posthumanist thought, since, pragmati- cally, he has come into being.



Ryan Kerr | 101

Rhetorically, The House of the Scorpion uses posthumanism and

protohumanism to complicate and explore each other. Posthuman- ism, described in detail below, refers to the world after biotechnol-

ogy has changed the very way we understand ourselves as humans. Protohumanism here is used to refer to how our myths of origin dictate the way we view our humanity. Creation or origin myths underpin how a culture views itself, and thus protohumanism is of utmost importance to questions of human identity. Specifically, Farmer explores these two ostensibly contradictory ideas that actu-

ally complement each other perfectly. Farmer uses the stark reality of posthumanism to complicate the Judeo-Christian notion of protohumanism, and vice versa. Our specific protohumanism does not an-

ticipate the potentialities of posthumanism, and in order to survive within posthumanism, protohumanism must be revised.

Before delving deeply into Farmer's text, a few ideas must first be established more thoroughly, namely, the understanding of posthumanism and protohumanism. Elaine Ostry, in '"Is He Still Hu- man? Are You?': Young Adult Science Fiction in the Posthuman

Age," grapples with the implications of the former. Citing Francis

Fukuyama, Ostry defines the posthuman age as that "in which lib- eral humanist definitions of the human are challenged through scientific advances," an age that is characterized by "the lines [being] crossed between organic and inorganic, and the human and animal"

(222). Ostry argues that posthumanism is especially relevant to adolescents and children because they will inherit the biotechnological world in the future. The dystopias created by the writers of today could very well be the stark reality of future generations.

In a posthumanist world, the question of what it means to be human is complicated in unprecedented ways. While philosophers have come to many different conclusions to this question over the

millennia, they have at least been dealing with a relatively uniform basic experience of life. But, when the lines between human and nonhuman are blurred, as they are in the posthumanist world, it becomes much more difficult to even define the fundamental question. As Ostry relates:




The trope that all young adult literature has in common is the search for identity. In the posthuman young adult science fiction novel, this search takes a particularly sharp turn when the protagonist realizes that he or she is not conventionally human, that many people would consider him or her to be an aberration. (224)

Though Holden Caulfield and Jerry Renault reach different conclusions about their place as human beings, they are both at least con-

ventionally human to begin with. When a person, such as a clone, calls into question the initial premise of humanity, then the question of what it means to be human must start at an even more basic level: who can even be considered human?

As we see with Matt in The House of the Scorpion, a fully healthy, sentient clone is not considered to be a human (not even an inferior or unimportant human). As the politician Esperanza Men- doza tells Matt, international law in their posthumanist world defines clones as livestock (Farmer 367). The problem, she tells him, is that "clones shouldn't exist" (366). Mendoza is not hostile toward

Matt, as many others are, but she demonstrates a key aspect of posthumanist thought. Cloning is a new and unprecedented enterprise. Thus, posthuman technology has advanced beyond the ability of international law or current values to understand: there is just no way to account for it. Since no préexistent thought accounts for clones like Matt, clones by default do not constitute a human subjectivity.

But, it is not as simple to say Matt is nonhuman as it is to say the same about the cow that bore him. When given educational op- portunities, Matt becomes a stellar student and quite polite. True, he has his beastly moments, but that is accounted for by his being a preadolescent. Ironically, he also acts much more humanely than most of the "actual" humans who occupy his world. Whereas Matt is defined as a cruel beast, it is those who despise him who act cruelly toward Matt in a most inhumane and beastly way. One of the few benevolent characters in the novel points out the irony. Tam Lin, Matt's bodyguard and father figure, uniquely views Matt as a fully formed individual: '"No one can tell the difference between a clone and a human. That's because there isn't any difference. The idea of clones being inferior is a filthy lie'" (245). Though Matt, fully



Ryan Kerr ļ 103

immersed in the ideology of his posthumanist society, cannot im-

mediately agree with this sentiment, Tam Lin is shown to be a sage advisor. Nobody can distinguish Matt as a clone unless they are told of his origin or they see the tattoo printed on his foot betraying an abnormal genesis. After Matt suffers major lacerations from broken

glass, the young boy Steven carries Matt's bleeding body compas- sionately to get help. Not until after Steven finds out that Matt is a clone does Steven completely change his attitude: he even betrays Matt, nearly with fatal consequences. So, Tam Lin's comment epito- mizes the issue. Matt is a clone and thus has a nontraditional genesis. He is defined as nonhuman and treated as such. Yet, to all intents and

purposes Matt is as much a human as any other character: he looks like a human (nobody can tell him apart by sight), he acts like a human (desiring gifts on the celebration of his and El Patron's birth), he thinks like a human (excelling in school), and he emotes like a human (becoming highly discouraged and despondent when not

accepted by fellow children Maria and Tom). Posthumanism must

grapple with this very concern when defining technologically created people. What is destiny: origin or manifestation?

Even though problems abound in a posthumanist world, there are some hopeful perspectives on how it can be appropriated. Donna

Haraway, in the landmark "Cyborg Manifesto," discusses the poten- tials there are for cyborgs (or humans whose boundaries with animals and technology have been blurred) to operate within a posthumanist world. Most crucial for Haraway is to admit that the posthuman, cyborg world exists and cannot be reverted: "We cannot go back ideo-

logically or materially" (1973). But, significantly, Haraway does not bemoan this as utterly hopeless: an ability to "live on the boundaries" will ensure survival in a posthumanist world, with its break- down of traditional borders (1983). This relates to Matt specifically because Matt has the potential to not be defined as nonhuman. Matt is in every way a cyborg: he was genetically engineered and grown inside a cow. For posthuman Matt to gain subjectivity, then, "[i] deologies of sexual reproduction can no longer reasonably call on notions of sex and sex role as organic aspects in natural objects like




organisms and families" (1973). The potential for a positive cyborg experience exists within the posthuman world. To facilitate this, the

origin myths of organic totality must be reimagined. Farmer does just this with The House of the Scorpion. Though

Matt's world is futuristic, Farmer distinctly calls upon images of ancient texts. While it may seem counterintuitive to call upon the book of Genesis in order to answer questions about humanity in a posthumanist worldview, Haraway prefigures the approach as actually quite beneficial. It is fitting for Farmer to reimagine the protohuman myth of Adam and Eve within her posthumanist subject matter precisely because creation stories reveal a culture's fundamental view of what it means to be human. In her introduction to Primal Myths, Barbara Sproul begins: "The most profound human questions are the ones that give rise to creation myths: Who are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of our lives and our deaths? How should we understand our place in the world, in time and space?" (1). Even more important for this study, Sproul argues that specific creation

myths are both shaped by and shape how that culture views its place in the world. For instance, Western descendants of a Biblical tradition (whether believers themselves or not) generally believe that "human beings are superior to all other creatures and are properly set above the rest of the physical world through intelligence and

spirit with the obligation to govern it" (1). This belief is reflected in and produced by the first chapter of Genesis in which God proclaims this to be true. On the other hand, just as many creation myths set animals in a sacred position, and thus the human followers of that tradition have greater respect for nature.

Thus, if Farmer wants to explore what we consider human today, and reconsider what we will consider human tomorrow, then she must come to grips with the creation myths that so deeply under- score our view of what it means to be human at all. If dystopian science fiction for young adult readers, such as The House of the Scor-

pion, is meant to examine what Western culture thinks of humanity, or could end up thinking, exploring the creation myth of Western culture is essential for a full understanding of how we understand ourselves with the advent of technology.



Ryan Kerr | 105

Surely, there is much of Genesis in The House of the Scorpion. On the most explicit level, Farmer makes it quite clear that she wants to invoke the Judeo-Christian tradition. Many people who could not

quote another phrase from the entire Bible know that Genesis chapter 1 starts with three crucial words: "In the beginning ..." (Gen. 1.1). Notably, the first chapter of The House of the Scorpion bears the title of and starts with the exact same lexical triad. Of course, the crucial words are those that follow in each text, respectively. Genesis tells that in the beginning, "God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1.1). Farmer relates that in her narrative's beginning, "there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room" (Farmer 2). It cannot be an unintentional parallel between the scientist Eduardo hunched over a microcosm of life in a dark room and God in a prelight universe cre-

ating the entire cosmos. The biblical language and imagery puts the reader in a mindset of genesis (either epic or genetic) and establishes that creation will play a large role in the narrative.

Sure enough, fourteen years later we find Matt (the only droplet of life to come to finition) once again being framed in the language of Genesis. While rationalizing his imminent murder and organ har-

vesting of 14-year-old Matt, El Patron uses the creation metaphor deftly: "'I created you, Mi Vida, as God created Adam'" (234). El

Patron, clearly aware of the biblical significance of his speech, must also be aware that Matt was quite literally created in El Patron's own

image; being a clone of El Patron, Matt has the exact same genetic makeup. The first chapter of Genesis tells that, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1.27). This is interesting, because even though El Patron alludes to the creation myth in chapter 2 of

Genesis, the creation myth in chapter 1 more closely resembles El Patron's creation of Matt because it is done by fiat: the verbal order-

ing of something to be done. El Patron did not literally create Matt with his own two hands (as God did with Adam in chapter 2); rather, he commanded his scientists to do so. Despite El Patron's lack of intricate theological interpretation, however, his view of Matt as his




Adam illuminates the attempts by Farmer to plumb our religious understandings of humanity.

But, Matt is not living in a humanist world; thus, the creation

myth of Genesis cannot help him fully come to grips with who and what he is. The posthumanist world in which the story takes place complicates and complexifies the existential ideals of humanity. Kenneth Burke hit the heart of the matter when he opined: "A be-

ing who conceives of himself as a link in an evolutionary chain is

going to act differently than one who thinks of himself as that being who stole fire from the gods" (qtd. in Tomasula 249). And how true, that a purely scientific view of humanity creates a different worldview than a mythical one propagated on the heroics of our ancestors.

Though Matt shares the same physical and behavioral attributes as other children, and thus is no different on a pragmatic level, the way Matt's creation is framed begins to determine both his own self- esteem and how others view him. Unlike a normal child like Maria, who was the product of a "natural" union between man and woman, Matt's "in the beginning" involved a highly involved scientific pro- cess and incubation in a cow. Thus, because Matt's creation was not

normative, Matt is not regarded as a true human. Rosa, his jailer for a while, actually transforms Matt's room into a large chicken

coop, complete with sawdust. For, to Rosa, Matt is an animal, and, "'That's what dirty beasts get to live in'" (Farmer 42). Matt, seeing himself thus, begins to devolve into an animal by temporarily losing his ability to speak. For a time, Matt fits the role assigned him by those who do not consider a clone to be human.

Farmer deftly plays with the protohumanist creation myth in such a way as to deconstruct its application within posthumanism. The way that the parallel with Genesis plays out in a world that is redefining humanity necessarily complicates the original model. As has been established, El Patron thinks of himself as the God of Genesis chapter 2. El Patron, the 140-year-old drug lord, fascinates the reader with his uncanny attributes. He has lived so long because he has created eight clones and slaughtered them for parts. Also, the

patriarch (of biblically proportioned age, no less) is obsessed with

having a pharaoh's tomb; if one remembers that pharaohs were also



Ryan Kerr | 107

thought of as god-kings, then El Patron's god complex is even more

striking. The connection with Egypt as represented in Genesis and Exodus is there, obviously, but this also demonstrates El Patron's

attempt to inscribe yet another ancient mythology on his life and actions. El Patron is the quintessential posthuman cyborg: he attempts to live forever through cloning and other forms of biotechnology. The fact that he inscribes protohuman myths from different traditions onto his posthuman life demonstrates how important it is for a

cyborg like El Patron to still conceive of himself as a character from humanist mythology.

The issue with this is, of course, that El Patron's reimagining of

origin stories, as Haraway calls for, only elevates himself. El Patron

certainly acts like a god, though a cruelly selfish one. He does in fact give Matt a conscious life, which is a posthuman reimagining of what clones are: El Patron allows the clone Matt to be an Adam, instead of merely a beast. But, he only intends Matt to use that conscious life briefly. Matt is not given a full life and childhood; he is loaned one. After Celia tells Matt that, even though she loves him, he has only been loaned to her, "Matt had trouble understanding the word loaned. It seemed to mean something you gave away for a little while - which means that whoever loaned him would want him back" (12, emphasis in orig.). Though Matt does not yet realize that this loaning refers specifically to the heart El Patron plans to harvest, he does understand the oddity of this. El Patron, assum-

ing the authority of a creator, only creates ultimately to incorporate (with the bodily ramifications of that word's etymology). As a god, El Patron acts tyrannical, controlling that which he has created and

demanding complete subservience. This reinvention of the origin story within a posthuman cyborg world is what Haraway cautions

against. As she puts it:

From one perspective, a cyborg world is about the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet . . . about the final appropriation of women's bodies in a masculinist orgy of war (Sofia, 1984). From another perspective, a cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints. (1972)




Haraway stresses the importance of recognizing the potential bad and good with a cyborg world. El Patron creates the spark for the latter by saving Matt's intelligence and giving him an education; this would allow Matt to assert his cyborg nature, and his kinship with the animal and machines that bore him, and not be afraid of a "permanently partial identit[y]." Unfortunately, El Patron is most concerned with controlling Matt's ability to produce organs, and thus in the end treats Matt as much of a nonhuman as a brain-dead clone, an animal. While some traditions view the God of Genesis to have similar predilections, that is but one of many variations; the fact that El Patron is represented as this type of God speaks to the potential God myth that can emerge in a posthumanist world.

If El Patron merely wants a clone to harvest organs, though, why would he allow that clone this intelligence? Matt is shocked when he learns that, even though El Patron has spent money and time

grooming Matt into an intelligent and well-mannered young man, El Patron has no desire to see Matt go on living in order to use that

training. Matt then, understandably, views what El Patron has been

doing as a game: an exercise in his role as false-god. The clone, who

probably should have expected as much for himself in this posthumanist world, is even more shocked to learn what happens to official humans after El Patron's death. Through a ruse involving poisoned wine, El Patron posthumously murders his entire set of family and friends so they can join him in the afterlife as his servants. Matt concludes that "[t]he plan must have been in El Patron's mind all

along. He'd never intended to let Mr. Alacran or Steven inherit his

kingdom. Their education was as hollow as Matt's. None of them was meant to survive" (Farmer 376). Here, El Patron's name becomes especially relevant. While el patron literally means the boss, it also shares linguistic heritage with the words father and patron. These words make sense for the ancient Matteo Alacran, because he is a strong patriarch in the family as well as a procurer of finances. But, El Patron's name also invokes the word patronize ; training your descendants to take over the family business when you have already planned their deaths can hardly be described as anything else. This



Ryan Kerr | 109

is why El Patron is such a perverse variant of the Father of Adam: he creates for purely selfish reasons and destroys when he can no

longer be around himself.

Despite his proclaimed altruism with Matt, El Patron is mostly driven by narcissism. The aforementioned scene where El Patron rationalizes Matt's imminent (yet unsuccessful) death betrays the true motives of Matt's existence. The reason El Patron does not have his clones mentally incapacitated, as is normally the law, is because he wants Matt and the clones that came before him to have an en-

joyable childhood before being killed. On the surface, this could be seen as El Patron wanting another human being to enjoy the beauty of the world, just as when God created humanity and the rest of existence. But, El Patron also states that "it pleased me to give you the childhood I never had" (232). The patriarch takes immense joy in seeing his younger self growing up; he is not really operating with much generosity. While one may argue that this act is also philan- thropic, El Patron's complete lack of charity throughout the book demonstrates that he never acts without direct personal benefit. For

instance, when Matt suggests that El Patron give some of his in- numerable possessions to the needy in order to feel good, El Patron

nearly goes crazy at the suggestion: he sees absolutely no benefit to

giving without taking. Hilary S. Crew calls this a "destructive and one-sided relationship that develops between a clone and his original when cloning-to-produce-children is practiced only to satisfy an

original's selfish needs" (210). El Patron as father, then, only leases life for his own amusement, and repossesses when he needs that life himself. Matt has no inalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the

pursuit of happiness, endowed by his creator. El Patron demonstrates his narcissism in how he deals with his

family as well. If El Patron was taken out of the Alacran home, the home would make generational sense. Steven, Benito and Tom are of the youngest generation. Mr. Alacran constitutes the next oldest

generation, with El Viejo fitting the grandparent role. The perverseness of this household is revealed when El Patron is discovered to be El Viejo's grandfather. This family tree demonstrates El Patron's ancientness as El Viejo himself is already fully senile. The reason




El Patron is able to outlive his grandson is because El Viejo decided

against clone implants. El Viejo refused biotechnological accoutre-

ments, whereas his grandfather swears by them. The implications of this are many, and will be discussed later, but it is important to note El Patron's attitude toward his aging grandson.

For any loving person, immortality would actually be a curse instead of a blessing. It would be a curse because that person would be doomed to watch everyone they love die of old age. Surely, most

parents would despair at seeing not only their children but also their

grandchildren wither away and die. But El Patron does not truly love

anyone but himself. Because of his pure self-centeredness, having a grandson pass away is relatively unimportant: much more important is his own survival. And, of course, El Patron eventually ends

up murdering his great- and great-great-grandchildren with the poisoned wine. For El Patron, immortality is indeed a blessing, and this attitude springs from his perverseness as creator. In the end, El Patron is a poor version of God. He is physically weak and at times

senile; his only power comes from fiat - ordering others around. The inversion of parental ideals, El Patron would rather kill his off-

spring than die himself. He serves as an example of how a creator in

posthumanism, able to extend life unnaturally and create clones for

spare parts, necessarily calls into question a creator's role in defin-

ing humanity. A final aspect of El Patron's character specifically worth men-

tioning is his abhorrence of death. In summarizing Fukuyama, Ostry lists the three main categories of posthuman biotechnology. One is

neuropharmacology, which includes mind-altering medicines such as Ritalin and Prozac (223). Genetic engineering involves cloning and other blurrings of the boundaries "between the human and the mechanical" (224). The other branch of biotechnology, which is most relevant here, is the prolongation of life. Ostry defines this as "trying to extend the lifespan beyond current limits, even trying to achieve immortality through scientific advances, a project far from completion" (223-24). Though this last endeavor is currently underdeveloped, Fanner's future world has made great strides. El Patron does not live to nearly 1 50 because he ate lots of vegetables



Ryan Kerr | 111

as a child; he lives that long because of breakthroughs in medical science. But, the question then becomes, what is the cost of his im-

mortality? It is clear that El Patron is most concerned with living as long

as possible: nothing else is nearly as important. He states quite clearly that, more so than his descendants, through whom he could

metaphorically live on, the most valuable person in his life is Matt, through whom he can literally live on. "This is my clone. He's the most important person in my life. If you thought it was any of you sorry, misbegotten swine, think again" (Farmer 62). Set in stark con- trast to his grandfather, however, is El Viejo. Though El Patron re- mains mostly lucid at 140, the completely senile El Viejo comes off as wiser and more natural. El Viejo, according to his son, "decided

implants were immoral . . . He's deeply religious. He thinks God put him on earth for a certain number of years and that he mustn't ask for more" ( 1 06). Truly, this will be the crisis of conscience in a purely posthumanist world. When life can be lengthened, presumably without end, should it? This moral issue does not exist in a humanist world since one cannot cheat death. Thus, the protohumanist view of

why we must die prevails. But with technology comes new ethical

questions. El Patron merely laughs off the perceived foolishness of his grandson, saying that El Viejo is refusing to take care of himself.

But El Viejo is not the only person to embrace death as a part of

humanity. After escaping from the artificially preserved Opium (El Patron has frozen it in the time of his youth, making it a sick perver- sion of Eden), Matt enters the modern world of Aztlan (formerly Mexico). After a stint at a work camp for orphans, Matt and his new friends escape to a local village that is, as Tam Lin had put it earlier when describing Aztlan, "trying to turn away from a machine-based

economy to the old Mexican culture" (246). Much to Matt's confu-

sion, and his friend Fidelito's ecstasy, the boys arrive on a special holiday. As Fidelito exclaims, "We're so lucky! Of all the days we could've come, we picked El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It's my favorite holiday in the whole year!" (349). Matt is unaware of this holiday because it was never celebrated in Opium. He is also confused about why such a morbid celebration would be




infused with such joy. Matt inquires about the holiday and receives a pithy, wise answer: He asks, '"How can anyone celebrate death?' 'Because it's part of us,' Consuela said softly" (351).

This answer, though befuddling to Matt, sums up the reason that this actual holiday is celebrated even today and, hopefully, will still be in the posthumanist world Farmer predicts. At the core of defin-

ing what it means to be human, the concern with death is vital. But, in a posthumanist world, when it is possible to perhaps indefinitely avoid death, it no longer suffices to say death is a necessary part of being human. This celebration is a throwback to the humanist world that Consuela descends from. She, the other villagers, and El Viejo are attempting to hold on to their acceptance of death in a posthumanist world; El Patron and his ilk are embracing a new, troubling definition of humanity. This acceptance of death is one of many aspects of our humanity that are necessarily reconfigured by the posthumanist blurring of the definition of human. Thus, new

understandings must be made if we are to come to grips with posthumanism.

The way that El Patron is viewed in Aztlan speaks volumes about the difference in how death is perceived in this dystopian posthumanist world. During the celebration of the Day of the Dead, Matt encounters a vision of his past. Marching through the throngs is a man dressed to imitate El Patron, or as he is known in Aztlan, "the

Vampire of Dreamland" (354). Dreamland is their term for Opium, but the word vampire is clearly meaningful to any reader. Philip D. Jaffe and Frank DiCataldo, in discussing actual humans who act as vampires, point out a relevant aspect of the ghouls: a vampire generally sucks "blood to retain his own immortality" (145). The

implication of a vampire is also commonly that his extended lifeline is abhorrent and ungodly. How fitting, then, that the Aztlan people, who still celebrate death as a natural part of life, would see El Patron as a vampire. He quite literally incorporates his clones' bodies into his own in order to live an unnatural lifespan. Once again, we find a

myth from the humanist world being applied to posthumanist prac- tices. This is one way to make sense of posthumanist biotechnol-

ogy that has no precedence. It is precisely because posthumanism



Ryan Kerr | 113

threatens to conquer the worldview of the Aztlanos that they feel

compelled to keep defining their humanity in terms of humanist mythology. This demonstrates that, just as posthumanism calls for a re- definition of protohumanist myths, so too do humanist views on life and death require critical analysis of the promises of biotechnology. Protohumanist myths are used to shed light on the posthumanism of the future, and so too is the legend of the vampire being utilized to condemn the initially attractive prospect of a lengthened life.

With such a creator and created world, Matt as posthumanist subject must negotiate protohumanist mythologies of what it means to be human and posthumanist creations and boundary blurring. Matt, as a clone in a posthumanist world, must discover how to define his humanity, or lack thereof. Adam, as a prototype of humanity, serves as a metaphor in the Judeo-Christian tradition in order for

people in the humanist world to do the same. El Patron's reinvention of Genesis finds a place for Matt in the creation story, even

though he is a clone; the problem, of course, is that Matt is first in- scribed and described as Adam, but is expected to be dominated like the beasts of the field. While the humanist world expressed through Genesis gives humans the ideal of individual rights, Matt's posthumanist world does not afford him, as a clone, the same. But, as Crew points out, The House of the Scorpion "emphasize[s] the individual's uniqueness and value as a separate human being" (208). Farmer attempts to demonstrate that Matt should be afforded human

subjectivity within his posthumanist world, precisely by showing his place in a reconfigured protohuman myth.

On an initial level, El Patron is almost attributed with God's

justness. Reviewer Erin Miller recalls that Matt "attempts to recon- cile his love for El Patron with the evil world the man has produced, a world in which millions of humans and animals are turned into zombies and many clones are slaughtered for their organs." Matt over time comes to grips with the evil nature of his progenitor but still cannot help but love him. Significantly, Matt even feels this way after he learns that he is to be harvested for El Patron's longevity. This acceptance of a betraying progenitor evokes the axiom that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Matt is infused with an ideology to




love the very person who oppresses him. The reader is even initially led to agree with El Patron that, since he gave Matt the gift of life and the beauty of the world, Matt owes El Patron that life. But it is Celia who contradicts this decree. Celia, who along with Tarn Lin

represents the two sagacious adults in the Alacran estate, asserts to El Patron that "Matt owes you nothing, and he's going to pay you nothing. You can't use him for transplants" (Farmer 235). Celia, by lightly poisoning Matt, cleverly saves him from El Patron's clutch- es. With the nonlethal amount of poison in Matt's system, his heart cannot be transplanted to the weak El Patron. It is almost as if Celia, in a refigured and ironic Genesis, has used poison as a substitute for the fruit of the tree of life. Though Matt is not made immortal, it does save him from the death El Patron would exact. Furthermore, we know Celia to be the righteous one in this struggle for Matt because the previous chapter, in which El Patron sends for Matt to be killed, is called "Betrayal," not this one in which Celia tricks El Patron. Celia's actions are presented by Farmer as magnanimous, whereas El Patron is the true betrayer of trust.

El Patron attempts to frame his posthumanist actions as that of a posthumanist God. It is right before he tells Matt that Matt owes him his life that El Patron evokes the story of Adam's creation. In a posthumanist world, where the ideas of humanity are blurred, El Patron is clearly pushing for clones to be defined as creations to be used for their donors. The allusion to Genesis and reworking of the same shows that El Patron is emblematic of certain problem- atic posthumanist conceptions of what it means to be human. But Celia denies this metaphor. She, fittingly an Aztlano by birth, will not accept El Patron's crucial change in the posthumanist creation

metaphor applied to clones: that they owe themselves fully to their creator. Rather, Celia clings firmly to the protohumanist metaphor that gives selfhood to each human, and applies this even to the clone Matt. This melding of creation metaphors is at the very heart of the matter of posthumanism and biotechnology, and nothing less is at stake than humanity itself.

Fittingly, the most hopeful aspect of The House of the Scorpion involves Matt stepping away from El Patron's reinvention of the

origin story and into that created by Tam Lin. Tam Lin, as men-



Ryan Kerr | 115

tioned above, is a bodyguard for El Patron who is left behind to

guard Matt. While Tarn Lin does follow El Patron's orders on this account, he throws in something El Patron certainly did not bargain for. Unbeknownst to everyone else in the Alacran household, Tarn Lin introduces Matt to an oasis that Tam Lin had discovered years before. After crawling through the secret passage for the first time, Matt marvels:

The scene on the other side was completely unexpected. Creosote bushes and paloverde trees framed a small, narrow valley, and in the center of this was a pool of water. At the far end Matt saw an enormous grapevine sprawled over a manmade trellis. In the water itself, Matt saw shoals of little brown fish that darted away from his shadow. (79)

This provincial paradise becomes an important place to Tam Lin and Matt. It is here that Tam Lin leaves Matt supplies and books after Tam Lin is called back to El Patron, and it is here that Tam Lin takes Matt to escape after El Patron's death.

This oasis, within the protohuman myth of Genesis, clearly strikes a chord with Eden. But so does El Patron's lush mansion and gardens. The difference between these two places, though, is the naturalness. The oasis is a naturally sweet place of refuge in the cruel desert. El Patron's created Eden is one of false pleasure: as Tam Lin explains to Matt, "Opium, as much as possible, is the

way things were in El Patron's youth. Celia cooks on a wood fire, the rooms aren't air-conditioned, the fields are harvested by people, not machines" (245). Tam Lin leads Matt out of El Patron's false at-

tempt at Eden, because for Matt that false paradise ends with his dis- embowelment. The only things that El Patron has allowed to grow technologically are his security system and the hospital from which his obsessive use of biotechnology can flourish. Given that this is

predicated on the death of his so-called Adam, instead of Eden's initial promise of everlasting life, El Patron has created a false paradise. Matt never disobeys in order to earn his premature mortality: El Patron planned from the beginning for Matt to die. But, even within a posthumanist world, Tam Lin shows how a stronghold can be held where the joys of a natural humanist world have not com-

pletely disappeared. Once again, Tam Lin does not completely reject




the posthuman cyborg; he still takes Matt, the clone, to this oasis. He even gets there at times by a biotechnical horse. Tarn Lin merely saves an idyllic place for the beauty of nature in this posthuman world. And, interestingly, whereas the false Eden of El Patron al-

ways recognizes the clone status of Matt, the natural oasis does not. When the fish nibble food from Matt's hand, he realizes that "[n]one of them cared whether he was a human or a clone" (168). This oasis in the potential desert of posthumanism is necessary for biotechno-

logical humans like Matt to gain and retain their subjectivity. More importantly than showing Matt the wonders of life, though,

Tam Lin also plants the seeds of dissent. Jennifer Brown pithily de- scribes the psychological function that Matt's surrogate parents, Ce- lia and Tam Lin, play: "Celia emphasizes faith, Tam Lin free will. Tam Lin also plants clues to a way out of Opium for Matt" (155). Tam Lin does not only show Matt the way out of Opium physically, by way of a map, but also ideologically, by way of a book. The aforementioned politician Esperanza Mendoza, within Farmer's

text, writes a scathing exposé on El Patron's creation of Opium. Tam Lin gives this book to Matt secretly, in order for Matt to realize that El Patron's enterprise is not righteous. Though Matt initially cannot abide Mendoza's text, as he still loves El Patron, Matt eventually comes to grips with the evil nature of this nation based on slavery and drug trafficking.

The reason Tam Lin's gift of A History of Opium is so crucial for Matt is because Tam Lin surely does promote Matt's free will. Tam

Lin, the only true confidant that El Patron has, knows much about his boss. When he and Matt are first becoming acquainted, Tam Lin, the self-described dunce, offers the following philosophical insight:

"I'll tell you this: El Patron has his good side and his bad side. Very dark indeed is his majesty when he wants to be. When he was young, he made a choice, like a tree does when it decides to grow one way or the other. He grew large and green until he shadowed over the whole forest, but most of his branches are twisted." (Farmer 70)

This apt description of El Patron demonstrates Tam Lin's notion of free will; El Patron, in Tarn Lin's reckoning, decided early in life to become the twisted, yet powerful, man that he is. Even more striking is Tam Lin's following advice to Matt:



Ryan Kerr | 117

"I'm probably talking over your head, laddie. What I mean to say is this: When you're small, you can choose which way to grow. If you're kind and decent, you grow into a kind and decent man. If you're like El Patron . . . Just think about it." (70)

Matt certainly has the exact same genetic make-up as El Patron: their biological nature, then, is the same. But, Tam Lin emphasizes that Matt need not follow in El Patron's footsteps. Daniel Cohen, in an informational book simply called Cloning, posits this same fundamental question: would clones "feel compelled to follow in the footsteps of the original"? (qtd. in Crew 207). Tam Lin, who is shown as sagacious throughout the novel, says no. To him, Matt has the free will to not follow his progenitor. Matt does emulate El Patron at times: "he'd observed El Patron give orders many times. He knew exactly how to reproduce the cold, deadly voice that got results" (Farmer 173). But, it is the ultimate rejection of unbridled

power, and the rejection of the subsequent crookedness of meta-

phorical limbs, that Matt strives toward with the help of Tam Lin's advice.

The book that Tam Lin gives Matt is forbidden knowledge in

Opium, and that book's knowledge convinces Matt eventually to dismantle Opium. Here again, Genesis is called upon. What is A

History of Opium if not the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? While living in the idealistic paradise of El Patron's mansion, Matt does not question the things going on behind the scenes. But once he has fully ingested Tam Lin's advice and Mendoza's book, he finally sees that Opium and El Patron are evil. Similarly, once Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they could also discern what was wrong from right. Though Genesis does not suggest that God banishes Adam and Eve because he is do-

ing evil, God does banish them because they gain the power of dis- cernment only he once possessed. For Matt, though, the posthuman Adam, his exile is an escape, not a punishment. After El Patron's death, the Alacran family wants Matt dead. Tam Lin saves him, and sends him on his way out of Opium. The free will that Tam Lin has

represented worked to both show Matt not to follow in his creator's

footsteps and to usher him out of the false Eden.




Finally, Tam Lin represents Matt's link to humanity precisely because of his promotion of free will. Now, Tam Lin by no means

presents free will to be all good and nonambiguous. We learn that, before coming to Opium, the Scottish Tam Lin took part in a terrible disaster. As members of the farm patrol explain to Matt, most of the British bodyguards and patrolmen El Patron hires are on the run from the law because of murderous soccer rage. But they tell Matt, Tam Lin's '"in a class by himself ... he's a bloody terrorist'" (176). Specifically, Tam Lin, a Scottish nationalist, had attempted to murder the prime minister by bombing his house in London. Unlike the other ruffians, "motivated by beer," Tam Lin was motivated in his actions by '"fancy ethics and social conscience.'" Though, as two

patrolmen put it, "'It's a shame a school bus pulled up at the wrong moment,' said Hugh. 'The blast killed twenty kiddies.' 'That's what social conscience gets you,' Ralf said..." (177).

So, we find out, Tam Lin spent his earlier life as a dissenter, even to the point of committing murder. His free will led to his lifelong guilt at having killed twenty children accidentally. But, ultimately, Tam Lin's free will is preferable to a complete lack thereof. Though the patrollers talking to Matt deride Tam Lin's "social conscience," the reader knows that this is better than having no conscience, or even conscious, at all. For Tam Lin's relation to Matt, this notion of free will is crucial. Matt is a posthuman Adam, created in the

image of El Patron with the expectation that he will blindly follow what El Patron has planned for him. For clones in general, as Cohen

pointed out above, the question of whether clones must follow in the footsteps of the original is key. By reenacting that part of the

origin story where Adam and Eve gained consciousness, and mak-

ing it a moment of salvation instead of Fall, the character of Tam Lin is allowing posthuman Matt to gain an independent subjectivity. Tam Lin does not ignore or completely dismiss the posthuman: his love and protection of the clone Matt demonstrates this. But significantly, Tam Lin fights to help Matt carve a niche for himself as an

independent, free-willed subject. Given that the Western humanist

conception of humanity includes free will, Matt appropriating that

component for himself in a posthumanist world is what will allow



Ryan Kerr | 119

him to survive as a cyborg. Ultimately, it is not merely Matt's biol- ogy that defines his destiny: his actions and decisions destine him for subjectivity.

The House of the Scorpion is a wonderfully crafted novel that traces a particularly grim projection of where current technology could take us. The hopeful aspect of the novel, though, relies on

Haraway's call to embrace the blurring of boundaries in a posthuman cyborg world. Though biotechnology evolves faster than the ethics

surrounding it, perhaps texts such as Farmer's, which call upon us to reconsider our understandings of ourselves, can help temper the po- tentially rocky transition into full-blown posthumanism and prevent the loss of our subjectivity. Even those of unprecedented origin need some mythos to give their lives meaning and structure. For Matt, this is accomplished through a reimagination of Genesis. From Eden to Opium, from Hebrew to science fiction, if we are to survive as a human race with shifting boundaries, we must find ways to uproot our deepest-held ideologies and shift those along with us.

Elgin Community College




Works Cited

Brown, Jennifer. "Voices of Experience." Publisher's Weekly 249.29 (July 2002): 154-55.

Crew, Hilary S. "Not So Brave a World: The Representation of Human Cloning in Science Fiction for Young Adults." Lion and the Unicorn 28.2 (2004): 203-21.

Farmer, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion. New York: Simon Pulse, 2002.

Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist- Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." The Critical Tradition : Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends . Ed. David H. Richter. New York: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2007.

Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.

Jaffe, Philip D., and Frank DiCataldo. "Clinical Vampirism: Blending Myth and Reality." The Vampire : A Casebook. Ed. Alan Dundes. Madison: U of Wis- consin P, 1998. 143-58.

Miller, Erin Nita. Rev. of The House of the Scorpion , by Nancy Farmer. The ALAN Review 30.3 (2003).

Ostry, Elaine. "Ts He Still Human? Are You?': Young Adult Science Fiction in the Posthuman Age." Lion and the Unicorn 28.2 (2004): 222-46.

Sproul, Barbara C. Primal Myths : Creation Myths Around the World. San Fran- cisco: Harper, 1979.

Tomasula, Steve. Vas: An Opera in Flatland. Illus. Stephen Farrell. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002.



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The Father, Son, and the Holy Clone: Re-vision of Biblical Genesis in "The House of the Scorpion"

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