Part II “Didn’t I realize that reading would open up whole new worlds? A book could open doors for me. It could introduce me to people and show me places I never imagined existed. She gestured towards the bookshelves . (Bare-breasted African women danced, and the shiny hubcaps of automobiles on the back covers of the geographic gleamed in my mind. ) I listened with respect. But her words were not very influential. I was thinking then of another consequence of literacy, one I was too shy to admit but nonetheless trusted.
Books were going to make me “educated. That confidence enabled me, several months later, to over come my fear of the silence. In this text, Richard Rodriguez gains his undying interest in reading. This is where he realizes what he believes would be his true calling. He believer reading would open up a new chapter of life to him. Show him places he had never Imagined. He wanted to be educated. Achieve more than his parents ‘did. The fact that he knew books would make him achieve his goal, gave him confidence.
He was initially a shy person who kept to himself probably because of his accent. But his tutor found a way through this private tutoring for him to break out of his shell. From then on he improved his speech and reading abilities for him to mould himself to this excellent scholar. Part “But this is criticism more accurate than fair. The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker;the very last person in class whoever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own.
In larger part, however, the reason he Is such a bad student Is because he realizes more often and ore acutely than most other students than Haggard himself that education requires radical self-reformation. As a very young boy, regarding his parents, as he struggles with an early homework assignment, he knows this too well. That is why he lacks self assurance. He does not forget that the classroom Is responsible for remaking him. He relies on his teacher, depends on all that he hears in the classroom and reads in his books. He becomes in every obvious way the worst student, a dummy mouthing the opinions of others. In this text, he realizes that the education he seeded for has had a negative effect on him. It has transformed him into a totally different individual from the person he once was. He his no longer in touch with his youth. He also realizes that he is a “dummy. He basically Just repeats the findings of other people. He Is practically a mimics who has no Ideas of his own. He sees himself as a “bad student”. This begins to tell on him. “After years spent unwilling to admit its attractions, I gestured nostalgically towards the past.
I yearned for that time when I had not been so alone. I became impatient with books. I wanted experience more immediate. I feared the library silence. I silently scorned the gray, timid faces around me. I grew to hate the growing pages of dissertation on genre and renaissance literature. (In my mind I heard relatives laughing as they tried to make sense of its title. ) I wanted something I couldn’t say exactly what. I told myself that I wanted a more passionate life. And a life less thoughtful. And above all, I wanted to be less alone. ”
Here he begins to miss his past and the person he was once. The boy who always spent time with his family. He wasn’t alone back then. Always had his family around, but not the same anymore. He got tired of reading. He wanted to see life as it was. He wanted to experience things now because there is nothing like seeing it for yourself. He finally realized the kind of life he was leaving. He began to detest the library and the people around it. He wanted an extravagant and enthusiastic life. He wanted people around him. He didn’t want to be the lonely person he was.