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Still A Scholarship Boy At Heart

Richard Rodriguez plays two roles as he writes about Richard Hoggart¡¯s writing: that of a reader and a writer. The roles of a reader and a writer are very closely related; ¡°Strong readers¡¦remake what they have read to serve their own ends, putting things together, figuring out how ideas and examples relate, explaining as best they can material that is difficult or problematic, translating phrases¡¦into their own terms. At these moments, it is hard to distinguish the act of reading from the act of writing¡± (17). In order to be a good writer, one must use proper reading skills. ¡°Reading¡¦requires a difficult mix of authority and humility. On the one hand, a reader takes charge of a text; on the other, a reader gives generous attention to someone else¡¯s (a writer¡¯s) key terms and methods,¡¦examples,¡¦language¡± (pg 10).¡± This demonstrates reading with and against the grain. Another way that one can distinguish a strong reader from one that is not, is his or her ability to make a mark on the reading. ¡°Reading is not simply a matter of hanging back and waiting for a piece, or its author, to tell you what the writing has to say¡¦.you are in a position to speak back, to say something of your own in turn¡± (1). Through reading Richard Rodriguez¡¯s The Achievement of Desire, one can get a good sense of what kind of a reader Rodriguez was, and that in turn reflects on what kind of a writer Rodriguez is in this piece. Rodriguez does not make a mark in his writing, but instead allows Hoggart¡¯s concept of a scholarship boy to assume the authority, showing that Rodriguez is still very much a scholarship boy.
Rodriguez¡¯s inability to read against the grain demonstrates that Rodriguez is still a scholarship boy. According to Hoggart, a scholarship boy ¡°learns how to receive a purely literate education, one using only a small part of his personality and challenging only a limited area of his being. He becomes an expert imbiber and doler-out¡¦but will rarely be...