Figurative Language In The House Of Scorpion

“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” - Lee Iacocca
Nancy Farmer’s brilliant ideas did come across in The House of the Scorpion. In The House of Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, is a science fiction novel about a boy named Matt is followed throughout his life and how he grows up as a clone on the Opium fields, where the border between the U.S. and Mexico exists today. He is a clone of El Patrón, a man much like a scorpion, the drug lord and king of the Opium empire. The story follows Matt as he grows up on the Alacrán estate and learns the repercussions of being a clone. Throughout The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer uses symbolism and figurative language to reveal different aspects
One of those characters is Celia. Celia usually talks in metaphors and they often foreshadow and reveal her spirit and determination. “I’ve got more tricks up my sleeve then old man coyote has fleas [she cried]!” (48). Here, Celia has found Matt imprisoned and cried out to him that she will free him. This reveals that she is brave, because everyone else on the estate supports Matt being imprisoned, but she is willing to speak out and take action to free him. This “action” is contacting the drug lord and ruler of the Opium lands, El Patron, and while contacting him she is putting herself at great risk. It is also shown here that she is cunning, because while most people would have looked in other ways to try and free Matt she went right to El Patron, unafraid, and advocated for Matt to have him freed. She stepped out of the box. Another character that has their traits revealed through figurative language is El Patron. It is well known that El Patron has been on a quest for eternal life for all of his own years of living. Which is why, at his one hundred and forty-third birthday party, someone says, “The old vampire. So he managed to crawl out of his coffin again” (99). This reveals how old El Patron is, and of course his desire to continue onward with his life. Vampires are commonly told to be immortal, so for someone to call El Patron this, they are associating him with not only a blood sucking demon but also with immortality. Not only does El Patron enjoy the thought of eternal life, he also does seem to “suck the blood” out of people. He takes away their free will by turning them into zombie-like eejits and poisons his family with drugs so they will stay hopelessly addicted to them and, evidently, to him. He takes the life out of people, almost, similarly to how a vampire actually does take the life out of people when they suck