I am currently reading The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. The book is about a little boy named Matt who is actually the clone of a rich drug lord, Matteo Alacran. While most clones are, by law, altered at birth so they have no intelligence and can only stand around and drool, Matt was not, because Matteo Alacran didn’t want him to be. So Matt feels like any other 7 year old boy, but when the general population of the house finds him, they put him in a pen and treat him like he is the most disgusting thing simply because most clones are like that.
Our group is only about fifty pages in, but this book already raises some pretty big questions in my head. Specifically, what does it mean to be human? Matt is not seen as a human. He is seen as animal or beast. He is not even considered a “he” but an “it”. I think that Matt is a human. He lived until he was seven like any other human boy would. He is just as different from Matteo Alacran as one identical twin is from another. He has his own memories and experiences to make him his own person. It is our memories that make us who we are. Matt has a life and memories and experience different from Matteo Alacran, and he is therefore his own person and definitely human.
This made me think about an episode of Doctor Who I watched recently (don’t judge me). The episode was called "The Rebel Flesh". In this episode, the characters meet a group of people who are using copies of themselves created from a special type of matter to stay safe while working near dangerous chemicals. These copies are temporary bodies the real people control like puppets and only exist while in use. That is, until a big storm comes are the copies become entirely individual people with control over their own minds. But they have the same memories as the people they are copies of, up until the moment the separation occurred.
I couldn’t help but ask myself if these people were humans who should be allowed to live as well, or if they were just matter and a collection of stolen memories that should be killed. After all, they are going to want to go home and live the lives they were living in the memories they unintentionally stole. It is very clear to me that these people are alive, but I am not sure if they are human. I believe that our memories are what make us who we are, and these copies have no true memories of their own. At the same time, it isn’t their fault that they are an exact copy of someone else. They didn’t choose to take someone else’s memories. I don’t think you can kill the copies. They are human and they didn’t ask to be what they are.
I think the point of all of this is that it isn’t how you are born or the way you are born or even if you are born that make you human. They thing both the clone type character have in common is that they believe they are human. If you have a real and true belief that you are human, then you are, and should be treated as such.
great blogpost Miranda! Since I'm in your book club, I could obviously relate to this post. In my blog I had a question sort of like yours. I like the way you related the book to an episode of Doctor Who. Anyways, great analysis!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post Miranda! I really like how you justified your way of thinking by relating it to something else. I think that it's horrible the way the people treat clones, as if it was their fault they were created. Like you said, they didn't ask for it, and they wouldn't even have been created if it wasn't for people being lethargic. You also built up your argument nicely.
ReplyDelete*Freaks out as to how you used a Doctor Who reference and she hasn't seen The Rebel Flesh because she watches Doctor Who on the internet, not TV and there are slight spoilers but doesn't care*
(YES! DOCTOR WHO IS AWESOME!)
interesting, i personally think of the reference to racism in general of how people were being treated as an it and not a he, in the first case in the book the child should be treated as a regular human whereas in the second the clones should be dealt with.
ReplyDelete