Examples Of Utopia In The House Of The Scorpion

Normally when we think of the word “utopia”, we think of a place that is ideal to live in where

everything is perfect. However, I think that utopias are bad because when people gain power, they

can get greedy and create a utopia that is not great for the people they lead. A few examples of this

are the country of Opium in “The House of the Scorpion”, “Animal Farm”, and the United States in

“Harrison Bergeron”. These are great examples of leaders taking advantage of the power they have

over their people.

“The House of the Scorpion” is set in a country named Opium where the powerful leader, El

Patrón, has all of the power and everyone obeys him. El Patrón creates his ideal country for just his

family where the house models his childhood home

with no modern conveniences, he has workers
called eejits to farm the opium, and everyone has to do what he says.

One example of the power that

El Patrón has is that he has a clone named Matt that everyone hates, but because El Patrón is so

powerful, everybody has to be nice to Matt. Another example would be that El Patrón controls who all

of the children marry so that he can gain even more money and power. To conclude, nobody likes El

Patrón’s utopia but him. Which is why I think utopias are bad, most of the time, they only work for the

person in charge.

In “Animal Farm”, the animals on one particular farm overthrow the humans and create an all

animal farm. In the beginning, the animals want to rid the farm of human influence and have all

animals be equal. As the story progresses, the pigs, who assume the roles of leaders, end up

becoming more and more powerful. One day, the only sensible pig, Snowball, is expelled and a

greedy pig, Napolean, takes over. The trust the other animals have in the pigs blinds them to the fact

that the pigs are slowly gaining power and creating a utopia that suits them. While the pigs enjoy

things that humans would use, take more food, and even slaughter innocent animals, the other

animals are told that the pigs need these things to run the farm and that the slaughtering

was
essential for the well- being of the farm. So, in this story, Napolean and the other pigs create their
perfect utopia by taking advantage of the other animals.
In “Harrison Bergeron”, everyone who is above “average” has to wear handicaps that put limits on
their mental and physical abilities. There is a handicap general who controls all of the handicaps and
makes sure that no one ever takes off their handicaps. The government says that they all need to
wear these handicaps in order to be equal. Although, none of the government officials have to wear
handicaps, which is where the utopia comes in. By forcing people to wear things that make them
dumber and weaker, the government has all of the power and can design a country of their liking.
In conclusion, I think that building a utopia is not a good idea. It allows one person to have way too
much power over everyone else. Normally, nobody except the leader ends up liking the utopia. Some
examples of this are the country of Opium in “The House of the Scorpion”, “Animal Farm”, and the
United States in “Harrison Bergeron”. So, although utopias may sound like the ideal place to live, they
always end up hurting someone else.