The Achievement Of Desire, By Richard Rodriguez

In the article, “Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez, starts to discuss the conflict of scholarship boy between school life and his home life. When he starts to make progress in his education, he was becoming discouraged and embarrassed of his parents lack of education. Rodriguez admits his success is due to never forgetting his life before he became a scholarship boy, yet the new change that came from getting an education. After reading this article, I would have to agree with certain parts Rodriguez has to say, yet disagree after realizing individuals who take the values of academic culture will start to experience alienation from native communities. Richard Rodriguez describes the difficulties between balancing life in the academic world and life of a working class family.

Learning to read and write was not an option; it was a requirement. “School will be what makes you succeed in life,” my parents and educators would say. I did not realize how hard it would be to read and write; however, it came natural to me, in the beginning. Struggling many times, several people did not believe in me; however, that never stopped me from wanting to gain more knowledge as I grew older. There has always been more positive people to motivate me whenever I needed inspiration.

Gene frequently tries to balance his academic and social life, but he gets sick of this balancing act when he backlashes at Phineas for interrupting him from his schoolwork, “Okay, we go. We watch little lily-liver Lepellier not jump from a tree, and I ruin my grade”(57). This event shows how Gene takes his academic work seriously and can get annoyed by the constant nagging and distractions by his friends. But Gene is also quite a passive character who tries to mold to his friends ideas and feeling, which can lead Gene to contradict something he has said before. Gene can’t handle the idea of completely blowing off Phineas so he just gives in

In the book, Outsiders, I noticed the most character development in Ponyboy Curtis. Although he didn’t realize many things until the end of the book, I think once everything registered within himself, he took everything that had happened to him in the past couple weeks as a lesson. One thing that Ponyboy finally grasped was that his oldest brother Darry actually cared for him. At first Ponyboy had always thought that Darry didn’t like him and that Darry would rather him be gone. However, after his friends repeatedly reassured Ponyboy that his older brother had been hard on him because he really loved and cared about him, Ponyboy slowly started to realize that, even though the two still fought a bit.

In the essay, “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez tells the story of his education and what it was like growing up in a Mexican-American immigrant family. He explains how his main goal from boy to man was to become as educated as possible; however, he was embarrassed by his parents’ lack of education and believed it was holding him back. By the end of the essay, Rodriguez seems to have realized that although he is proud of his academic achievement, he is very lonely and desires the life he had as a boy when he was surrounded by family, love, and affection. He describes this realization as “the end of education.” Rodriguez had the idea in his head that in order to be successful and obtain as much knowledge as possible, he had to

Slam immediately didn’t like coach Nipper because of the way he responded to Slam’s actions. In the movie, Jamal's teacher Mr. Crawford doesn’t like Jamal either. First of all, Jamal is a new student at his school and Mr. Crawford thinks that his writings are too good. Mr. Crawford’s dream of being a published author got destroyed when he was younger so now, he doesn’t

Reuven notices that Danny is very different from whom he had expected him to be. As the son of Reb Saunders, Danny shows many signs of having an intellectual passion, however he admits that studying just the Talmud is not enough and that his school life is quite boring. He feels that the teachers are too afraid of his father to challenge him, thus, he reads many books as a replacement for experiencing the challenges and excitement that he could never achieve at school. Rather than judging Danny by his appearance or position, Reuven uses this opportunity to actually listen to him, as a result, he was able to learn many things about his new friend. Prior to the novel, the same reoccurring theme of friendship seem to play an important role in

The first way Brian thought positively was because of his English teacher. His English teacher always told him to be positive because it gives him a good life. Instead at the bad times, Brian always knew there was another day. The second way Brian thought positively by thinking about home. Brian got upset so what he did was imagined the food, his family, and everything back at home.

The son himself follows more of his mother’s personality, because he always thinks ahead. This is evident by the quote “…bothered teachers for homework assignments far ahead of their due dates so I could draw up schedules.” This shows that the son thinks ahead and likes to plan for the future, a characteristic he shares with his mother. The fathers care free, go with the flow personality is exemplified by his multitude of last runs. “He was indifferent to my fretting.” This quote shows that the father cares more about having fun with his kid than by adhering to the strict guidelines his wife has set. During the son’s pivotal moment where he starts to enjoy his time he see’s his father in a different light than what he used to the son realizes how much fun he has had with his father during the trip and on all the past trips they have been on.

For instance, In the beginning of the book it talked about how Chris was an intelligent student who strove for perfection and when he didn’t achieve the grade he wanted he was very hard on himself. But his mom would talk to teacher and make sure Chris got the grade he thought he should have earned. Another example was when Billie and Walt McCandless offered to pay for Chris’s law school. Highly offended, Chris declines the offer. I believe Chris was searching for something and thought