Summary Of The Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez

Taylor Miller

Dr. Bussey

English 1001

11/21/14

Scholarship Man

“The Achievement of Desire” written by Richard Rodriguez is an autobiographical text that introduces a self-analysis from an education perspective. The text’s content follows Richard’s schooling within the different phases of his life, such as primary school, convent school, and then a higher education, college. The author talks primarily of the effects and disadvantages of wholly being a scholar. Over the course of the essay, Rodriguez analyzes himself from an outside perspective, and he sees how he had felt a sense of embarrassment due to his parent’s lack of education and had also become obsessive with a path he had chosen. Rodriguez later relinquishes his former sense of shame and undergoes a powerful transformation from his forgone life to reach a newer and

The shame came to the scholarship boy when he one day looked at his parents and saw that they did not read or strive to improve their education. This is the point at which Rodriguez began to alienate himself from his heritage and his “home” life. This caused the scholarship boy to become lonely, because Rodriguez could now not even relate with his parents. The transformation allowed Rodriguez to see that he was enthusiastic about learning, “I kept so much, so often, to myself. Sad. Enthusiastic”, but that his educational priority had caused a disheartening and broken relationship between his family, his accessible life, and his heritage (Rodriguez 550). After his pinnacle of realization, the scholarship boy reminisces on his parent’s true support and proudness of his education, “Yes, my parents were proud. I knew it” (Rodriguez 605). The self-analysis allows for Rodriguez to desire lost experiences and opportunities, and see how this “miseducation” has formed him, but also destroyed