How Did Richard Rodriguez Break Away From Authority
Eli Davidson
Professor Thur
E-25
2-15-15
Not Breaking Away from Authority
A writer can only become effective if he decides to value change and thus abandon the conventions of daily life and tradition itself. This can only happen too if there have been events in his or her life that triggered the decision to break free from what is traditional. Based on “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez has not broken the hold of tradition over him, and that he has not become his own authority because he has remained obedient to all those whom he had considered symbols of authority like his parents, his teachers and the society.
There are a number of reasons why Rodriguez has not left tradition. Firstly, there has not been any event in his life, particularly in his school life, that caused him any great distress. Moreover, there was nothing so radical in his life that it had to cause a great upheaval in him. He may have experienced some temporary mental setbacks when he was young and when he had his first classroom experience but it was not enough to stir something great in him. For example, Rodriguez said, “A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was …show more content…
changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student” (Rodriguez 196). This means that Rodriguez himself was able to experience some sort of distress from the pressures of having to change his lifestyle when he started going to school. However, this is still a far cry from what Adrienne Rich describes as “confusing, disorienting, and painful” (Rich 18). One can only realize that he has departed from tradition when he has reached this level of distress. It may have been true to Rodriguez that “good schooling requires that any student alter early childhood habits” (Rodriguez 197). Nevertheless, such pressure was not enough for him to abandon the tradition of education and not enough to stimulate his imagination to do such a thing. Moreover, although it is a fact that the boy Rodriguez “wants to continue as part of the family circle, the balance is lost [because] the boy needs to spend more and more time studying,” this loss of balance is not the same as the pressure and difficulty that other people may have experienced before they decided to leave tradition (Rodriguez 197). In fact, in the case of Rodriguez, he says, “Not until my last months as a graduate student, nearly thirty years old, was it possible for me to think much about the reasons for my academic success” (Rodriguez 196). This means that he even finished education and thus lived his life in the tradition of the academe before he realized the flaws of the educational system or what wrong the educational system has done for him. Thus, because of his adherence to tradition – which is mainly demonstrated by his love for traditional classroom education – he has never thought of abandoning tradition itself.
Secondly, Rodriguez himself has remained obedient to tradition and used little of his imagination. Education has in fact transformed Rodriguez into something he himself disliked. He said, “The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic…not a thinker, the very last person who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own [and he is] the worst student, a dummy mouthing the opinions of others” (Rodriguez 203). As a student, therefore, Rodriguez realized that traditional education has not been doing him well, and this is even an understatement because he could see that it was turning him into a robot, which he conveniently called “a great mimic.” Nevertheless, he pursued his studies, perhaps because he was a child then and he had no choice but to study. However, he did not mention in “Achievement of Desire” even just one instance that he entertained any negative thought about traditional education. In fact, he supported it for he even said, “Faithfully, I wrote down all that [my best teachers in college] said. I memorized it [and] I copied down exactly what my teachers told me” (Rodriguez 206). Rodriguez idolized his teachers, thus demonstrating his loyalty to the tradition of education. In addition, he even glorifies traditional education by saying that “without extraordinary determination and the great assistance of others – at home and at school – there is little chance for success” (Rodriguez 197). He has clearly almost deified religion in that he was not able to think about anything against it. Although as “a professional, [Rodriguez] knew exactly how to search a book for pertinent information…whenever [he] started to write…sentences were overly cautious, timid, strained brittle….” (Rodriguez 204). This means that a part of him is telling him that traditional education has changed him into something a little undesirable. Nonetheless, he did not notice this or perhaps dismissed it as merely trivial. This blind loyalty to tradition has in fact robbed Rodriguez of the opportunity to intelligently use his imagination. For Rich, imagination is everything necessary for abandoning tradition: “…to be a female human being trying to fulfill traditional female functions in a traditional way is in direct conflict with the subversive function of the imagination” (23). Moreover, for Rich, breaking free from tradition needs “re-vision [or] the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction…” (Rich 18). Rodriguez failed to see tradition and traditional education with “fresh eyes” and he has failed to recognize the idea of having to abandon it although he could see the negative things it has done to him. The negative effects of tradition on Rodriguez were therefore perhaps not strong enough to effect a change in him.
Thirdly, Rodriguez did not experience the negative in a rich way. According to Rich, “We would be failing each other as writers…if we neglected or denied what is negative, regressive, or Sisyphean in our inwardness” (25). This means that in order for one to be able to realize that tradition must be abandoned or that he has to break free from tradition, then one has to be in touch with his negativity first or with whatever kind of evil besets him. If this experience is rich enough, then this will naturally encourage one to think that tradition will not do him anything good. Nevertheless, Rodriguez may not have been able to experience something like this. According to him, “I intended to hurt my mother and father. I was still angry at them for having encouraged me toward classroom English. But gradually this anger was exhausted, replaced by guilt….” (Rodriguez 199). Nevertheless, Rodriguez was not able to internalize anger or any negative emotion so intensely that he was able to think of breaking free from tradition. In fact, during his fourth year at school, Rodriguez “became a conventionally dutiful son, politely affectionate, cheerful enough, even – for reasons beyond choosing – my father’s favorite” (Rodriguez 199). Moreover, Rodriguez said that people always told him, “‘Your parents must be very proud of you,’ and to answer affirmatively, he would just smile (Rodriguez 202). From these statements, one can see that Rodriguez’s intention to hurt his mother and his father and his anger towards them when he was a child was actually nothing more than trivial. It was clearly not the same as the rich experience of negativity that Rich meant when she said, ““We would be failing each other as writers…if we neglected or denied what is negative, regressive, or Sisyphean in our inwardness” (25). Thus, Rodriguez’s negative experience was not strong enough to cause in him a desire to break away from tradition.
Fourthly, neither Rodriguez nor his style of writing may have caused a reversal of role with the opposite gender, with his parents or with any individual. Rodriguez has remained faithful to his role as a student and has never rebelled or gone against it no matter what. In fact, Rodriguez calls himself “the docile, obedient student” (198). In addition, in his fourth year, Rodriguez “became a conventionally dutiful son, politely affectionate, cheerful enough, even – for reasons beyond choosing – my father’s favorite” (Rodriguez 199). In short, Rodriguez was always an obedient follower of tradition. This also reflected in his writing, particularly in the rather uneventful tone of “Achievement of Desire.” This rather uneventful tone of writing is not likely to stir spirits or change lives among its readers. In the same way, Rodriguez himself did not undergo a great change in character when he embraced tradition. Indeed, perhaps, it is only by abandoning tradition that one can become a great and influential change in this world. As long as one clings to tradition, he remains as a testament to others that nothing has to change and that everything is fine the way it is. However, unlike Rodriguez, Rich believes that “…just as woman is becoming her own midwife, creating herself anew, so man will have to learn to gestate and give birth to his own subjectivity [and that] women can no longer be primarily mothers and muses for men….” (25). This clearly implies that as long as one clings to tradition, then it should reflect in one’s writings, and that it is expected that these written works will never create any significant change in the readers or in their lives. Whereas, if one abandons tradition, especially if one has experienced a reversal of roles both in real life and in writing, then one expects to be a catalyst of change in his readers or in every person he meets. Rich further reminds us that “our struggles can have meaning only if they can help to change the lives of women whose gifts – and whose very being – continue to be thwarted” (Rich 21). Rodriguez has never ever experienced this or mentioned this in “Achievement of Desire.”
Rodriguez’s work is a proof that he has not broken free from tradition and the authority of society.
His uneventful work is free of any radical ideas and this reflects his equally uneventful and obedient life as a student and son. The proofs that he has not abandoned tradition include the fact that he has not experienced any cataclysmic distress. He also has not used his imagination to the fullest or he did not have the opportunity to do it. He also has not been in touch with negativity so intimately in this life. Lastly, he has not experienced a reversal of roles in his life or something that made his life turn upside down. Rodriguez lived a good life with tradition, thus it is expected that he would not break away from it even as he grew older and became a
writer.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Works Cited
Rich, AdrienneHemeHemRich, Adrienne. "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision." College English 34:3 (1972): 18-30. Print.
Rodriguez, Richard. "The Achievement of Desire." Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2010. 194-206.
Professor Thur
E-25
2-15-15
Not Breaking Away from Authority
A writer can only become effective if he decides to value change and thus abandon the conventions of daily life and tradition itself. This can only happen too if there have been events in his or her life that triggered the decision to break free from what is traditional. Based on “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez has not broken the hold of tradition over him, and that he has not become his own authority because he has remained obedient to all those whom he had considered symbols of authority like his parents, his teachers and the society.
There are a number of reasons why Rodriguez has not left tradition. Firstly, there has not been any event in his life, particularly in his school life, that caused him any great distress. Moreover, there was nothing so radical in his life that it had to cause a great upheaval in him. He may have experienced some temporary mental setbacks when he was young and when he had his first classroom experience but it was not enough to stir something great in him. For example, Rodriguez said, “A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was …show more content…
changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student” (Rodriguez 196). This means that Rodriguez himself was able to experience some sort of distress from the pressures of having to change his lifestyle when he started going to school. However, this is still a far cry from what Adrienne Rich describes as “confusing, disorienting, and painful” (Rich 18). One can only realize that he has departed from tradition when he has reached this level of distress. It may have been true to Rodriguez that “good schooling requires that any student alter early childhood habits” (Rodriguez 197). Nevertheless, such pressure was not enough for him to abandon the tradition of education and not enough to stimulate his imagination to do such a thing. Moreover, although it is a fact that the boy Rodriguez “wants to continue as part of the family circle, the balance is lost [because] the boy needs to spend more and more time studying,” this loss of balance is not the same as the pressure and difficulty that other people may have experienced before they decided to leave tradition (Rodriguez 197). In fact, in the case of Rodriguez, he says, “Not until my last months as a graduate student, nearly thirty years old, was it possible for me to think much about the reasons for my academic success” (Rodriguez 196). This means that he even finished education and thus lived his life in the tradition of the academe before he realized the flaws of the educational system or what wrong the educational system has done for him. Thus, because of his adherence to tradition – which is mainly demonstrated by his love for traditional classroom education – he has never thought of abandoning tradition itself.
Secondly, Rodriguez himself has remained obedient to tradition and used little of his imagination. Education has in fact transformed Rodriguez into something he himself disliked. He said, “The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic…not a thinker, the very last person who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own [and he is] the worst student, a dummy mouthing the opinions of others” (Rodriguez 203). As a student, therefore, Rodriguez realized that traditional education has not been doing him well, and this is even an understatement because he could see that it was turning him into a robot, which he conveniently called “a great mimic.” Nevertheless, he pursued his studies, perhaps because he was a child then and he had no choice but to study. However, he did not mention in “Achievement of Desire” even just one instance that he entertained any negative thought about traditional education. In fact, he supported it for he even said, “Faithfully, I wrote down all that [my best teachers in college] said. I memorized it [and] I copied down exactly what my teachers told me” (Rodriguez 206). Rodriguez idolized his teachers, thus demonstrating his loyalty to the tradition of education. In addition, he even glorifies traditional education by saying that “without extraordinary determination and the great assistance of others – at home and at school – there is little chance for success” (Rodriguez 197). He has clearly almost deified religion in that he was not able to think about anything against it. Although as “a professional, [Rodriguez] knew exactly how to search a book for pertinent information…whenever [he] started to write…sentences were overly cautious, timid, strained brittle….” (Rodriguez 204). This means that a part of him is telling him that traditional education has changed him into something a little undesirable. Nonetheless, he did not notice this or perhaps dismissed it as merely trivial. This blind loyalty to tradition has in fact robbed Rodriguez of the opportunity to intelligently use his imagination. For Rich, imagination is everything necessary for abandoning tradition: “…to be a female human being trying to fulfill traditional female functions in a traditional way is in direct conflict with the subversive function of the imagination” (23). Moreover, for Rich, breaking free from tradition needs “re-vision [or] the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction…” (Rich 18). Rodriguez failed to see tradition and traditional education with “fresh eyes” and he has failed to recognize the idea of having to abandon it although he could see the negative things it has done to him. The negative effects of tradition on Rodriguez were therefore perhaps not strong enough to effect a change in him.
Thirdly, Rodriguez did not experience the negative in a rich way. According to Rich, “We would be failing each other as writers…if we neglected or denied what is negative, regressive, or Sisyphean in our inwardness” (25). This means that in order for one to be able to realize that tradition must be abandoned or that he has to break free from tradition, then one has to be in touch with his negativity first or with whatever kind of evil besets him. If this experience is rich enough, then this will naturally encourage one to think that tradition will not do him anything good. Nevertheless, Rodriguez may not have been able to experience something like this. According to him, “I intended to hurt my mother and father. I was still angry at them for having encouraged me toward classroom English. But gradually this anger was exhausted, replaced by guilt….” (Rodriguez 199). Nevertheless, Rodriguez was not able to internalize anger or any negative emotion so intensely that he was able to think of breaking free from tradition. In fact, during his fourth year at school, Rodriguez “became a conventionally dutiful son, politely affectionate, cheerful enough, even – for reasons beyond choosing – my father’s favorite” (Rodriguez 199). Moreover, Rodriguez said that people always told him, “‘Your parents must be very proud of you,’ and to answer affirmatively, he would just smile (Rodriguez 202). From these statements, one can see that Rodriguez’s intention to hurt his mother and his father and his anger towards them when he was a child was actually nothing more than trivial. It was clearly not the same as the rich experience of negativity that Rich meant when she said, ““We would be failing each other as writers…if we neglected or denied what is negative, regressive, or Sisyphean in our inwardness” (25). Thus, Rodriguez’s negative experience was not strong enough to cause in him a desire to break away from tradition.
Fourthly, neither Rodriguez nor his style of writing may have caused a reversal of role with the opposite gender, with his parents or with any individual. Rodriguez has remained faithful to his role as a student and has never rebelled or gone against it no matter what. In fact, Rodriguez calls himself “the docile, obedient student” (198). In addition, in his fourth year, Rodriguez “became a conventionally dutiful son, politely affectionate, cheerful enough, even – for reasons beyond choosing – my father’s favorite” (Rodriguez 199). In short, Rodriguez was always an obedient follower of tradition. This also reflected in his writing, particularly in the rather uneventful tone of “Achievement of Desire.” This rather uneventful tone of writing is not likely to stir spirits or change lives among its readers. In the same way, Rodriguez himself did not undergo a great change in character when he embraced tradition. Indeed, perhaps, it is only by abandoning tradition that one can become a great and influential change in this world. As long as one clings to tradition, he remains as a testament to others that nothing has to change and that everything is fine the way it is. However, unlike Rodriguez, Rich believes that “…just as woman is becoming her own midwife, creating herself anew, so man will have to learn to gestate and give birth to his own subjectivity [and that] women can no longer be primarily mothers and muses for men….” (25). This clearly implies that as long as one clings to tradition, then it should reflect in one’s writings, and that it is expected that these written works will never create any significant change in the readers or in their lives. Whereas, if one abandons tradition, especially if one has experienced a reversal of roles both in real life and in writing, then one expects to be a catalyst of change in his readers or in every person he meets. Rich further reminds us that “our struggles can have meaning only if they can help to change the lives of women whose gifts – and whose very being – continue to be thwarted” (Rich 21). Rodriguez has never ever experienced this or mentioned this in “Achievement of Desire.”
Rodriguez’s work is a proof that he has not broken free from tradition and the authority of society.
His uneventful work is free of any radical ideas and this reflects his equally uneventful and obedient life as a student and son. The proofs that he has not abandoned tradition include the fact that he has not experienced any cataclysmic distress. He also has not used his imagination to the fullest or he did not have the opportunity to do it. He also has not been in touch with negativity so intimately in this life. Lastly, he has not experienced a reversal of roles in his life or something that made his life turn upside down. Rodriguez lived a good life with tradition, thus it is expected that he would not break away from it even as he grew older and became a
writer.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Works Cited
Rich, AdrienneHemeHemRich, Adrienne. "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision." College English 34:3 (1972): 18-30. Print.
Rodriguez, Richard. "The Achievement of Desire." Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2010. 194-206.