Confliction's Between Characters

What I have found throughout the first part of the book or as Nancy Farmer explains it, Youth: 0 - 6, that there are numerous conflicts growing between certain characters in the novel. What I have noticed, beginning on page 23 is that many people consider clones something that is extremely inferior and poor. For example on page 24 of chapter 3, after the fierce man leaned over and whispered into Rosa's ear that Matt was a clone, Rosa immediately took Matt outside of the Estate and threw him out onto the grassy meadow. This event implies that there may have been a conflict between this man and clones themselves, specifically a conflict between the man and Matt. This could explain why many people think of clones as rabid and bad tempered animals. There are also may other events illustrating that people have a thing against clones such as the comment by Steven. "He is an animal." This is just one of the many indications throughout the book that clones have earned themselves a very bad reputation.


One of the more prominent conflicts in the first stage of the book is the one between Rosa, the caretaker and Matt, the clone. As stated before, as soon as Rosa heard that Matt was a clone, she got rid of him as soon as possible. When the fierce man found out Matt was property of the Alacran Estate, he told the doctor at once and it was the doctors responsibility to keep him up to health. So, he was taken in to a jail cell where he would be cared for until further notice. But soon, Rosa found out that she was responsible for feeding and cleaning the jail cell of which Matt would spend his time in. From there on out, the conflict began to arise. It first started off with Rosa, handing out rather nasty food to Matt, food that was barley even edible. Rosa also has a flirtatious relationship with the doctor Willum. Unfortunately, like all relationships, there are flaws and later on they began to fight. Because of this fight, Rosa redirected her anger at Matt, blaming him for everything that has happened between Willum and Rosa. Rosa told Matt hints like "if it wasn't for clones, i wouldn't be in this position, i wouldn't have to clean your stinky prison!"


I have been asking myself, is there a greater meaning to all of these conflicts? Or are they just common fights between characters? I think that something that the author is trying to inform us that there is a reason why many people hat clones so badly. Nancy Farmer is hinting to me and other readers that there was an event that was the catalyst for all of these conflicts between characters. Possibly, cones may have done something extremely bad. Maybe, the first clone that was made got out of hand and killed other innocent people. From the first five chapters of this book, we can't tell exactly what bad things clones have done to deserve being treated the way that they are, but we can assume that something greater happened with clones.

Overall, conflict-ions between characters in the first five chapters of the book has gave or almost left us with a bit of uncertainty as well as an educated guess at what might happen over the course of the rest of the book.