“The Achievement of Desire” – Tensions Faced in a Battle to Satisfy Oneself

“The Achievement of Desire” – Tensions Faced in a Battle to Satisfy Oneself Tension can be defined as mental or emotional strain. In the circumstances of “The Achievement of Desire,” a self-essay written by Robert Rodriguez, tension can be more defined as contrasts within Rodriguez’s life that results in conflicting forces that negatively strain him mentally and emotionally. Rodriguez faces educational and family tensions, which leads him to be an emotionless outcast with an unhappy life and a constant never-ending feeling of being unsatisfied. Rodriguez describes himself as a “Scholarship Boy,” obsessed with school and education, and ultimately losing himself as a person. In losing himself as a person he also lost connection with family and a social life. Rodriguez faces a huge tension within his family, which was his view of his parents and teachers. Most normal kids would idolize their parents and aspire to be like them when they grow older. That was not the case for Rodriguez. He was ashamed of his parents and embarrassed of how uneducated they were. Rodriguez describes in the essay his views of his parents through his metaphorical self, “The Scholarship Boy.” He states, “He cannot afford to admire his parents. He permits himself embarrassment at their lack of education.” Rodriguez instead focuses all his adoration and idolization on his teachers, aspiring to be like them and even telling his mother that he planned to become a teacher some day. He describes how he feels about his teachers stating, “I wanted to be like my teachers, to possess their knowledge, to assume their authority, their confidence, even to assume a teacher’s persona.” Rodriguez’s feelings about his parents and teachers contrast with one another. The people that should have a huge impact on his life, his parents, have little to no positive impacts on him, only negative. Due to his disparity to never be like his parents and being ashamed of them, he puts focus into education, completely losing himself as a person and losing connection with his family. With his focus in school also brought about the idolization of his teachers. They had the impact on his life and he reflected himself on their actions and what they taught him. This even drags into college, choosing to go over 100 miles away to stay away from his family and when coming back to visit, he describes talking to them as an interview, not a normal conversation. This reveals the severity of the tension within the relationship with his parents. Along with losing ties with his family, Rodriguez also lost an aspect of a social life. This was a huge tension he faced throughout his life which started in school and moved to his personal life. Fellow classmates would be jealous of him and at home he would ignore his family. At home he would occupy his time with reading and be disengaged from his family. When his parents would ask questions he would ignore them and continue on with his book. He describes his struggles through the description of “The College Boy.” He exclaims, “-the boy already makes students around him uneasy. They scorn his desire to succeed. They scorn him for constantly wanting the teacher’s attention and praise. ‘Kiss Ass,’ they call him when his hand swing up in response to every question he hears.” Rodriguez had no friends his age; his only friends were his teachers and books. The closest thing he had to a friend was the very old nun who he would read with in his school library. The tension he faced did not just remain in elementary school but expanded to his life in college. Rodriguez would always detect annoyance from fellow students and from teachers at his success. College was an extremely lonely period for Rodriguez. His sacrificed for success caused him to be depressed and alone.
Throughout his successes in school, Rodriguez rarely showed pride in his accomplishments. He would never hang up an award or display a trophy. He would toss it aside like it was nothing. Even though Rodriguez showed no pride in his own work, he did show much arrogance towards his parents. These were contrasting tensions the showed slight hypocrisy within his emotions. Rodriguez would never be satisfied with his success, he would always strive to do more and toss aside everything from his previous accomplishments. At one moment his high school diploma ended up in the trash, but he could have cared less. Rodriguez was embarrassed of his parent’s uneducated status. He was embarrassed of their occupation and accents. In the essay he describes, “’Your parents must be very proud of you.’ People began to say that to me about the time I was in sixth grade. To answer affirmatively, I’d smile. Shyly I’d smile, never betraying my sense of the irony; I was not proud of my mother and father. I was embarrassed by their lack of education.” Rodriguez showed no pride or arrogance to what he had accomplished but merely accept the compliment with no satisfaction. He saw himself as superior compared to his parents, which forms the contrasting tension between how he feels about himself, and also how he feels about himself compared to his parents. The contrast of his emotions about himself had poor affects on Rodriguez causing him to push himself more and more into his education and which caused him ultimately to lose himself.
Rodriguez faced extreme tensions that poorly affected his life. Due to Rodriguez’s efforts to become more educated he ended up losing family ties, his social life, and his pride. In the end, Rodriguez lost his identity and became the image of his teachers and the books he reads.