La monstruosidad en la marça del escorpión, de Nancy Farmer

Abstract

The phenomenon of the monstrosity has been widely explored, in general, in the literatures of all the cultures and periods; especially, the infantile and juvenile literature has benefited from the ominous figure of the monster, which allows young readers to identify in this archetype the fears suppressed or unexpressed of their intimate world. The juvenile contemporary novel, undoubtedly, has renewed the conception of the monstrous figure to adapt to the mentality of the contemporary reading public and to reflect a more complex and deep reality. In this respect, the novel The house of the scorpion, by Nancy Farmer, renews the image of the monstrous figure across the merger of classic elements of the science-fiction genre with neorealism and antiauthoritarianism, neosubversive resources of the infantile and juvenile literature.
In an interesting parallel with Frankenstein, the young protagonist of The house of the scorpion is stigmatized because of his “unnatural” genesis, which locates him, from the beginning, as a monster before the world. The fight of this character for his right to live confronts him with the aberrations of a consumer, decadent and inhuman society, real representation of monstrosity.