House of the Scorpion (3)

When the day came, Eduardo received the newborn into his hands as though it were his own child. His eyes blurred as he laid it in a crib and reached for the needle that would blunt its intelligence. "Don't fix that one," said Lisa, hastily catching his arm. "It's a Matteo Alacran. They're always left intact." Have I done you a favor? thought Eduardo as he watched the baby turn its head towards the bustling nurses...

 The main character, Matt, of the book House of the Scorpion is shown to be different from the rest of the people born in Opium. In this part of the book, Eduardo the scientist is told to vaccinate all the children with a drug that "blunts its intelligence". Their lack of intelligence makes it much easier for El Patron to gain their loyalty and control their every move. However, El Patron assigned the scientists to create a clone of himself so that when he becomes ill, he would be able to take the clone's organs in order to survive. Matt is chosen to be the clone of El Patron. As a clone, Matt is allowed to keep his brain untouched and he is allowed to use his brain to its fullest potential; however, he will be watched over and neglected because of who he is.

Matt is the main focus of the book, making him the dystopian protagonist. The world in which he lives in is controlled by El Patron, the richest and most powerful man in the land between Mexico and the United States. Being the only child not vaccinated by the scientific-developed drug, Matt is the only child in Opium unaffected by the results of the drug. His brain does not function on the commands of El Patron. Matt has a mind of his own and can think for himself. Because he is a clone, he is allowed to see what is right and what is wrong. The incident where him and Tam Lin find a worker dead in the fields makes him see the evils of the way El Patron makes the world work. Since Matt is given the freedom to think, he is the only hope the people of Opium have. Towards the end of the book, he is told that he is the only one who can save those people from the tyrannical control of the walls of Opium. Matt sees this world from the inside, seeing how El Patron controls the people. He then sees a different perspective, the view of the children from Lost Boys. Able to combine the information to make his own inferences, Matt works to stop the rule of El Patron. He sees the dystopian society for what it is and does all he can to end this tyranny.