How did Sonia Nazario, the author of the award-winning book Enrique’s Journey, use literary elements to enhance her non-fiction book? What did she do to capture the reader’s attention? Well, Nazario uses multiple forms of figurative language to enhance her book and grab the reader’s attention. She uses these different forms of figurative language to develop multiple key concepts and themes, like the theme of persistence. An example of the author’s use of figurative language can be found when she states, “‘Ahora nos enfrentamos a la bestia,’ migrants say when they enter Chiapas. ‘Now we face the beast’” (Nazario,61). The personification of calling the country of Chiapas a “beast” was mentioned to highlight how menacing Chiapas is for Enrique and the other migrants. …show more content…
This is seen when Nazario continues to say, “Painfully, Enrique, seventeen years old, has learned a lot about ‘the beast.’ In Chiapas, bandits will be out to rob him, police will try to shake him down, and street gangs might kill him. But he will take those risks, because he needs to find his mother” (61). The author connects the figurative language in the latter quote to the fact that Enrique has not given up on his journey for his mother, despite the hardships he endured in “the beast”. This enhances the book by introducing and developing the theme of persistence. Additionally, the author uses multiple metaphors to develop this theme. For example, Nazario states, “Arrayed against them is la migra, along with crooked police, street gangsters, and bandits. They wage what a priest at a migrant shelter calls la guerra sinón, the war with no name. Chiapas, he says, ‘is a cemetery with no cross, where people die without even getting a prayer’”