The Other Hybrid

The primary theme I see emerging in The House of the Scorpion aligns with nearly all of the other science fiction we’ve read for the course thus far. The recurring theme of “other” and “otherness” stands out from the beginning of the book. I’m focusing on the blending which serves as the catalyst that makes the group other. In Lilith’s Brood, the mixed children of the Oankali and the humans are the other, in a way that both parent groups view as uncanny. Early on in the semester, Frankenstein laid the groundwork for this bizarre hybrid model. Requiring an element of human and an element of something… different, the group (or in some cases, the individual) is the blend produced, the other. In Blindsight, it was the Synthesists; meanwhile, in “The Comet,” an African-American became the other.

At times, the various authors make social commentary using the other as a vehicle to deliver their message. In the case of Nancy Farmer, she seems to have settled on the idea of human cloning for the purposes of organ harvesting and labor. While this theme has not previously occurred in our readings, it does carry with it the concept of an oppressed people. I do not believe that a group deemed the other must to have a quality of being trodden upon for them to be other… but it certainly helps.

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