Pathos In Enrique's Journey

“Enrique’s Journey” is a book written by Sonia Nazario, published originally in 2006, and updated and revised in 2014. It is an eye-opening, factual, and often disturbing story following 17 year old Enrique as he travels from Honduras through Central America to reunite with his mother in the United States. His mother, Lourdes, left him and his sister behind when they were children to send remittances back so they could continue going to school and have enough money for food. Nazario’s purpose of writing this book was to make people more sympathetic to immigrants and their experiences by revealing Enrique and many other migrants’ stories. She achieves this purpose by telling the story in a credible and objective manner, using the literary technique …show more content…
These emotions are most often induced from the descriptions of migrants’ experiences, with Enrique’s experiences being focused on the most, and there is noticeable word choice to emphasize the emotions Nazario hopes to evoke. For example, on page 354, she quotes Enrique, “‘they look at us [immigrants] as Martians, as if we were from another planet’” (Nazario, 354). This quote was intentionally included as a pathos appeal, as the comparison of immigrants to space aliens is something that readers can understand and that most can relate to, and it makes them feel sad and sympathetic to migrants. On the other hand, pathos is also used to create feelings of happiness, which are further emphasized as a break from all of the negative aspects of an immigrant’s journey. On page 190, the happy reunion between Enrique and his mother after eleven years is described, “Enrique runs… his mother is asleep. He jumps squarely onto the bed next to her. He gives her a hug. Then a kiss. ‘You’re here. Mi hijo.’ ‘I’m here,’ he says” (Nazario, 354). This passage is intended to make the reader feel happy, relieved, or another positive emotion. These positive emotions are intensified by the short descriptions of their reunion, which add emphasis to the moment, but also the visual choice words, like “run” and …show more content…
Parallels are drawn between experiences, families, and completely unrelated people, and these are all expressed through recurring subtleties throughout the book. The idea of cycles is also common, but is also never outright mentioned, only hinted at, but eventually the reader will realize that the issues discussed work in cycles. Parallels are used when discussing situations that people find themselves in, for example, the parallels that are drawn between Maria del Carmen Ferrez and Lourdes. Carmen is a woman who cleans Sonia Nazario’s house, and is one of the people who initially introduces her to the situations where mothers leave their children to immigrate to find work. Carmen has children in Guatemala, and “she left them there when she ventured north as a single mother to work in the United States. She has been separated from them for twelve years.” Lourdes, Enrique and Belky’s mother, also left her children to find work in the United States, and she was also separated from her children for over a decade before she was able to see Enrique again. This is one of the many parallels drawn between unrelated people in the book. This particular parallel persuades readers to have more sympathy for immigrants because it is evidence from more than one person

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