Analysis Of Richard Rodriguez's The Achievement Of Desire

In Miya Tokumitsu’s essay In the Name of Love, Tokumitsu argues that “do what you love” could actually be harmful advice to give to graduates. Tokumitsu, who has a doctorate in Art History, writes from a very controversial viewpoint, criticizing advice that many would see no issue with as being divisive and contributing to larger issues in society. A large section of her criticism is devoted to Steve Jobs’ 2005 speech to Stanford University graduates, where he told students it is important to do what they love. Her argument is well supported with many examples and details. However, her faulty logic and strong language in some cases make it difficult to fully agree with her point.

Many of us are very family oriented and believe that family should always be present in our life no matter what do in life. While some of us feel that, our desire is worth more important than family due to the lack of communication with family members. In the “Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez recalls some of the difficulties he had at a young age, which was balancing his life academically and practicing the Mexican traditions. His desire was more important to him than his family because communication with his family was not as strong as before when he began to get more involved in his education, which separates him from his family mentally and physically.

In his essay, “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez informs readers that he was a scholarship boy throughout his educational career. He uses his own personal experiences, as well as Richard Hoggart’s definition of the “scholarship boy,” to describe himself as someone who constantly struggles with balancing his life between family and education, and ends up on the side of education. In recognizing himself as a “scholarship boy,” he shows that he has gained what sociologist C. Wright Mills terms the “sociological imagination,” which “enables its possessor to understand the larger

To fully comprehend a work you cannot just read it. You must read it, analyze it, question it, and even then question what you are questioning. In Richard Rodriguez’s The Achievement of Desire we are presented with a young Richard Rodriguez and follow him from the start of his education until he is an adult finally having reached his goals. In reference to the way he reads for the majority of his education, it can be said he reads going with the grain, while he reads a large volume of books, the quality of his reading is lacking.

Today’s society sees college as a very fundamental step to obtaining success. Carmen Lugo-Lugo argues that instead of being focused on education, college is beginning to convert into a marketplace and a business. She states that colleges are now more interested in making a profit from their students than the actual education they are there for. Due to this mindset, the flow of the classroom environment and how students treat professors is affected. She also makes it known how prevalent systematic racism and racial profiling exist and tells the readers by her first hand accounts. In her essay “A Prostitute, A Servant, And A Customer-Service Representative: A Latina in Academia”, Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo uses emotion and language to communicate her claim. Throughout her writing she demonstrates strong emotion-evoking words, and hyperboles.

In Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire,” he compares himself to author Richard Hoggart’s “scholarship boy,” the type of student anyone can become. The “scholarship boy” is “anxious and eager to learn,” but is overbearing in his ways of learning and conveying knowledge (Rodriguez 534). Born as a son of two Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez quickly detached his life at school from his life at home. Hoggart helped Rodriguez to see near the end of his education exactly how harmful this type of lifestyle would become for Rodriguez’s learning. In my own experience, and specifically in my four years of high school, I tried my best to avoid being a “scholarship boy,” because that would prove detrimental to myself in relationships, my education, and my health and wholeness.

When reading this autobiography it reminded me of my adolescent years; I remember feeling like I knew all there was to being a grown up, I also felt like my parents didn’t know much because they didn’t go to college. I strongly feel like they could have always done more than they were doing. Upon reading this, I felt as though I was reading Richard Rodriguez’s journal and he was a very unhappy kid living in the ghetto. He was also embarrassed of his own life and he seemed unhappy in his own skin... “(Ways of reading pg.339) A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that success was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student”.

People have different opinions on the importance and meaning of literate arts. Literate arts are significant, but not mandatory. It is crucial for everyone to understand how it attributes towards the outside environment. Literate arts is a way for individuals to express and understand themselves through different forms of writing- like stories, poems, etc. Literate arts are good for promoting the development of aesthetic sensibility, using sentimental and cognitive responses- which leads to precise critical reasonings.

In his essay “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez has certain ways of speaking and caring. In particular, he focuses on his education and his family. These two will eventually clash and interfere with each other. Rodriguez contrasts school, family, teachers and most importantly himself. He also tells us how left his childhood and family for education, but when he wanted to return he couldn’t fully do so. He learned he couldn't fully return due to his conforming to education that leads him to observe and analyze everything.

In public schools from Venezuela, exist higher possibility to a prettier female student pass successfully the course with better grade than any other intelligent female student with unlikely physical features. This happens because some professors take advantages of their authority and physically abuse of their students with the benefit of pleasure in exchanges of a good grade; for that reason, students will be affected with an educational imbalance over their future courses. On the contrary the United States, the possibility of a professor abusing of his or her authority is an issue that barely happens. The majority of professors strictly fallow a leeway of respect before students. The margin of respects between professors and students is strict. This benefits the professor in protection of high demands of abuse accusations or anything

Our education system is perhaps one of the most complex institutions in the United States. Students are taught to be their most authentic selves but yet are told to think a certain way. In reality, students really don’t have the freedom to be their genuine identity. Our society tells us that a typical student speaks the language, excels in all areas of study, and loves to read. Children who do not fit this mold are often at a disadvantage and do not attain the same acceptance. In the essay, “Achievement of Desire” Richard Rodriguez was a first generation immigrant from Mexico. His parents spoke little English, and had no education. Automatically, his family is an outcast. Throughout Rodriguez’s schooling career he learned to fit the perfect mold of the “typical” American student. He finds himself to be in an internal struggle between social versus family isolation, authenticity and finding his place in the American society.

There are many political, religious, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Islamic women many of them are completely different than factors in the lives of American women. Islam is one of the world’s fastest growing religions; however, Brooks argues that “Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of this once liberating faith.” The book also shows these factors have slowly been taking away women’s rights, rather than furthering them.

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women written by Geraldine Brooks shows what it is like to be a woman in the Middle East. It is mainly about how Islamic women have persevered the demanding, expectations of their lives. It takes place in the Middle East specifically, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It features the lives of many women, including the wives and daughters of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Not only does the book tell the stories of these women, but it also addresses the religious standings about the etiquette these women should have. Brooks features decades of history in the book from Muhammad to king Saddam Hussein while also discussing the treatment of Muslim women from beginning to end. She gives a face and a voice to the veiled women of Islam as it retold their stories about Islamic feminism and restricting laws.

The book I chose is titled The Evolution Of Desire by David M. Buss In this book the author explores the concepts of human mating in general, and breaks down what separates the men from women in terms of mating desires. He strives to understand what each gender uses to find, acquire and ultimately keep a mate. The author theorizes that the origin of today 's human mating behavior is directly linked to our evolutionary past. Some of thee main points were that while women prefer a older, healthy and intelligent man who is ambitious, with high social status and strongly built. Most men on average simply prefer young, physically attractive woman.

Reading has a history of association with sensuality. In “On Women and Reading”, from Tribble and Trubek, there is a painting of an elegant woman reading in a chair. The painting is whimsical in nature and depicts an enjoyment of the literature. She is fully clothed and without an erotic pose, but the softness of the painting coupled with the casual lounging with her book is somehow sensual. “Novels were regarded with considerable suspicion by the respectable, especially the ‘godly’, who feared that female novel readers would become idle, sexually aroused, or obsessed with a fantasy world” (Tribble and Trubek 338). This fear was in the context of reading, but today, with the popularity of Internet writing and publishing; women have found their own place in pornographic text.