Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire” shows the negatives and positives of becoming entirely consumed with reading and writing. Throughout the book, the narrator and author, Rodriguez, completely loses his sense of family and instead gets engulfed by the thought of education. Rodriguez was raised in a working class family, which means advanced schooling is not a standard in Rodriguez’s family. Due to the stark differences between Rodriguez and his family, Rodriguez begins to downgrade the value of family and eventually becomes detached from his family. On the other hand, Rodriguez’s passion for becoming educated through reading and writing shows that Rodriguez has strong ambition and motivation. Rodriguez’s fascination with reading and writing shows the positives and negatives of becoming engulfed with reading and writing, which leads me to connect with Rodriguez’s essay as a reader. First, there are some positives with Rodriguez’s obsession with reading and writing. Obviously, reading and writing prepare an individual to become more educated, to an extent. It is important to comprehend what is read and form own thoughts. Unfortunately, Rodriguez just absorbed everyone else’s thoughts and…show more content… First, he became disconnected with his family as Rodriguez started losing respect for his parents. Due to Rodriguez’s parents lack of education, Rodriguez began to feel embarrassed because of the way his parents speak and act. Also, Rodriguez turns into a “collector of thoughts” and “the very last person in class to have an opinion of his own” (Rodriguez 67). This impacts Rodriguez’s life negatively as he is not forming his own opinions, but instead stays congruent with everyone else. Classmates began to become annoyed with Rodriguez, some calling him a “kiss ass” (Rodriguez 65). Socially, Rodriguez was hit hard due to his obsession with reading and
