Rene Denfeld's Novel 'The Enchanted'

4.4 Critical Response Essay

Choices and Consequences Life is meant to be a journey filled with celebrations, tragedies, surprises, and agony. Often, individuals make choices and decisions that create difficult consequences for themselves and their loved ones, as well as significantly impacting their personal identity, thus changing the direction of their journey. Rene Denfeld’s novel The Enchanted explores the journey of life through a variety of characters, with vastly different backgrounds, and how their decisions have shaped their lives. Her character of the white-haired boy is an extreme, and heartbreaking, example of how our choices can create difficult consequences capable of changing who we are as people and shaping the direction of

This is all new and frightening to him, as it should be. The white-haired boy knows why he is here though and takes responsibility for his actions. “He knew what he did was stupid: He and his buddies took a car for a joyride” (76). The white-haired boy can see that this is a result of what he’s done, that this is a consequence of his choice and actions. He doesn’t whine, doesn’t say that he was treated unfairly, or is a victim of a corrupt system. The white-haired boy seems to agree with the judge that sentenced him, that this “was his wake-up call” (76). His actions have brought him to prison, sentenced for two years, and torn him away from his family. His family must wait, write letters, and hope for the best considering the situation they all find themselves in. The white-haired boy originally is in this similar mindset, “going to classes and making a few careful friends, even laughing at his work assignment in the clothing factory” (81). He’s still optimistic, planning on a future outside of prison, and believing that the rest of his sentence will be smooth sailing. When he finds “Life was not that bad; he could begin to imagine making it two years. After so much confusion and fear, hope was beginning to well up inside him. Maybe he could finish school. Go to college, even” (81). His naivety has him blind to the danger he is

The boy has been so broken, in body and soul, that it’s hard to imagine him being able to free himself. It’s when another broken prison shares that Conroy’s corruption extended his sentence because he “was a favorite – just like you” (193), the boy is almost shaken into action. He wishes to escape his prison within a prison and knows he will have to make it happen for himself. Out of desperation, an idea forms, “The heart of the boy holds one last hope. It is an idea so precious, he cannot name it. The idea will not fix things, because nothing can be fixed. The idea will not make him happy or whole, because he will never be happy or whole again” (196). He has one last chance at reclaiming his life, and he knows who to target. His decision, and action, mark his final transformation from a naïve boy, to broken victim, and finally into a man willing to commit murder. It’s a dark crime, one that he never could have imagined committing before suffering what he did. He makes his choice, and decides to kill Conroy, the corrupt official responsible for his first taste of rape in this prison, and the man who can keep him locked here for as long as possible. Once the murder is done, with surprising ease by someone who was once so innocent and optimistic, the boy feels alive again. “When he puts on the clean dry uniform, he feels he has birthed a new skin”