The House of the Scorpion

Alacrán, or scorpion, was the name given to the residents of the town in which El Patrón lived in poverty long ago. The people were given the nickname due to the fact that Mexico was crowded with as many people as scorpions, equating humans to animals. As an homage to the nickname, El Patrón made the name his own and started the Alacrán family. Just as Alacrán literally means scorpion, the Alacrán family emblem is also a literal scorpion. Celia often compares the family’s moral state to that of a vicious scorpion. The emblem itself symbolizes El Patrón and his family’s cruel, poisonous, backstabbing nature. Each member of the Alacrán family proves to be backstabbing and cruel in one way or the other, literally signifying the family’s connection to the poisonous scorpion. The Alacrán family ironically treats Matt as an animal when their own family is named after and equated to an abhorrent creature. The physical scorpion emblems that respond only to El Patrón’s DNA signature create a link between Matt and El Patrón. However, Matt rejects the scorpion-like identity that he could have easily inherited from El Patrón’s DNA and chooses to be a kind, moral, and caring person.