Summary Of The Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez

Consequences from the Need of Education Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire” could easily be categorized as a bildungsroman. The author uses literary devices to elaborate on his bicultural hardship as a Mexican American boy seeking higher education. In the essay, the author contributes literary elements of satire, flashbacks, and deductive reasoning to lure the reader into further in-depth thinking. As a child Rodriguez was the exception to the stereotypical student coming from a low-income working class family. He was always on top of his class and rather than spending his time out with friends or with his family he spent his time with books and notes. He saw schooling as the best way to get rid of his embarrassment of being a
Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire” is an essay, but has all the characteristics of a Bildungsroman; it concerns itself with the development of a youthful protagonist as he matures. The process of Rodriquez’s maturity is long and gradual, consisting of repeated hardships between his needs and desires. The reader is told about the extraordinary educational achievements he fulfilled, “ as brilliant: undergraduate work at Stanford University, graduate study in Berkeley and Columbia, a Fulbright fellowship to study English literature in London,” (Rodriguez, 214). Rodriguez conflicts with a psychological battle between education and family. After every achievement, he was praised with fife words, “Your parents must be very proud”, and those fife words made him regret leaving his family behind. At the end of the essay, the author determines to regain the lost time he missed out with his parents. In page 226, Rodriquez finds himself observing his parents portraying the same gestures as him. At this moment Rodriguez feels relief of being embarrassed by his parents, as a child growing
He has demonstrated the effective use of rhetorical strategies through out his essay, to convince the reader how he become that of a “scholarship boy” (Rodriguez, 224). Rodriguez interprets his path of education as a reminder to readers that there is more to education than the books. That education composes of every aspect in the environment. The nostalgia dramatizes the author after many years have passed and the author begins to question what he could’ve done better. Rodriguez realizes that he has been running away from his shame of lost culture, that after many years in the academic world he regrets the separation he created between his