Topics and Sample Essay for Enrique's Journey

Topics and Sample Essay for Enrique's Journey

Here are the topics you can choose from:

1. Explain and give evidence of how Of Mice and Men and Enrique's Journey are both about the idea of the American Dream.

Thesis:Enrique's Journey and Of Mice and Men are both about people trying to achieve the American Dream.

2. Explain and give evidence of the injustice of immigration in Enrique's Journey.

Thesis: One of the themes of Enrique's Journey is the injustice of immigration to America.

3. Explain and give evidence of your opinion about whether or not it was worth it for Lourdes to leave her family and come to America.

Thesis: I believe that it was/was not worth it for Lourdes to leave her family behind in Honduras and come to America.

4. Explain and give evidence of how immigration causes Enrique's family to fall apart because they abandon one another.

Thesis: The effects of immigration on families like Enrique's is devastating.

5. Explain the conflicting and complicated relationship that Lourdes and Enrique have.

Thesis: Enrique and Lourdes have a complicated relationship.

Sample Essay: How Enrique Changes on His Journey

Enrique changes both physically and mentally on his journey. His journey is more than just a journey from Honduras to the United States. It is also his journey from boyhood to manhood. At the beginning of the story he is a young innocent boy, but by the end, he is an angry, jaded adult.

Lourdes leaves Enrique when he is just a small boy. He was still dependent on his mother for everything when she left. He depended on Lourdes for her love, affection, food and shelter, as every child does. However, after she left, Enrique began to change.

After Lourdes left, Enrique became an unruly child. He felt abandoned and unloved, and started to act out. In school, he was always in trouble with teachers for the way he acted. "Now Enrique's anger boils over. He refuses to make his Mother's Day card at school. He begins hitting other kids. At recess, he lifts schoolgirl's skirts." (page 24) Outside of school, he was always fighting with his grandmother.

When he decided to come to America, he grew up quickly on the way. He showed great courage on the journey. Physically, he suffered beating at the hands of police officers and Mara Salvatrucha gangsters. His teeth were broken and he had broken bones. One beating was so bad that it gave him headaches for years. "His cap flies away. Someone rips off his shirt. Another blow finds the left side of his face. It shatters three teeth. They rattle like broken glass in his mouth. The men pummel him for what seems like ten minutes. The robbery has turned into bloodsport." (page 54) Starvation, loneliness, and mistrust of people and authority caused him to lose his childhood innocence quickly.

Along the way, he did learn some valuable life lessons that helped him survive. He learned how to work hard to get food by washing cars. Enrique learned about perseverance and never giving up. His determination to get to America to reunite with his mother was unbelievable. Enrique was willing to die to be with her. If he could survive the trains of death, he could do anything.

After arriving in America, Enrique was approaching adulthood. In some ways, he became very mature. He was hard worker. At his job as a painter, he worked long hours and was promoted to being a sander. After his arduous trip on the trains, working as a painter gave him motivation to be successful.

Even though he was a good worker, Enrique was not as successful at being a father. He did send money to his girlfriend Maria Isabel for baby Jasmin, but he also wasted a lot of money on drugs. Eventually, he convinces his wife that she should leave baby Jasmin in Honduras to come join him in America. "'If I have the opportunity, I'll go,' Maria Isabel says. 'I'll leave the baby behind.' Enrique agrees. 'We'll have to leave the baby behind.'" (page 196) It is very ironic that even though he resents his mother for leaving him, he does the same thing to his own daughter.

When he came to America, his opinions about his mother were conflicted. As a boy, he idolized her, but as he grew up, he began to resent her. He loved her and risked his life to be with her, but also hated that she left. They fought constantly. Their dream of being reunited was short lived and reality set in.

Enrique is a complex, real person. He has good qualities, such as his determination and hard work, and bad qualities, such as his drug habits. As he matures, his opinions about his mother and immigration changed. He achieved his dream of reuniting with his mother, but the price he paid was his innocence.