Summary Of The Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez’s chapter excerpt “The Achievement of Desire” illustrates an example of the scholarship boy. Richard Rodriguez defines “scholarship boy” as a person from a working-class background desires to assimilate into a higher class. The character of Paul from John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation (1990), represents Richard Rodriguez’s scholarship boy, by trying to assimilate into the culture of the white upper society and thereby losing his heritage and personal identity by repudiation of his original “working class” language, and also putting up his scholarship boy persona to connect with the higher class by using the scholarship boy’s mimicry, his own persistence, and impersonation of the dominant, hierarchical class. Rodriguez

Rodriguez is trying to convey that home life for a working-class child is drastically different than the classroom and is extremely difficult for them to change. Although Paul is not in a classroom his actions are not typically those of a student, but he shows his need to change himself with the use of knowledge learned from Flan and Ouisa, which is opposite of what he had in his past life being from that of a lower class. Paul’s working-class background can be seen here as he is not wanting to stay in his original class position and caught between having an assured comfort or possibly being successful. Imitating the upper class, he is trying to infiltrate and coming up with false memories, Paul is starting to forget who he is to achieve to his goal. Connecting with the Kittredges he says “But I never knew I was black in that racist way until I was sixteen and came back here. Very protected. White servants”. Paul continues to represent Rodriguez’s definition of a scholarship boy as they both come from working-class families, and they are both trying to leave their past behind to replace it with something they see as better in their eyes, even though it is never stated directly in the film it is heavily implied. Rodriguez writes about the scholarship boy and home life “He enters the house and hears his parents talking in ways his teachers discourage” Paul in the film mirrors Rodriguez’s own struggle of escaping his own culture background and racial difficulties not being part of the white and wealthy. This is seen in the phone call scene with Ouisa, Paul can be seen pouring his soul to her showing just how desperately he wants to be accepted as their surrogate son and inherit their art profession. As the great mimic, the scholarship boy is, Paul