Richard Rodriguez while writing The Achievement of Desire faces a difficult obstacle of working with a prior text. Rodriguez uses Hoggart’s concept of a “scholarship boy” and applies it to his own life. Yet something is missing, there is something not right about the “scholarship boy” Rodriguez claims to be. Rodriguez’s “scholarship” boy isn’t exactly what Hoggart defines as one to be; he is actually very different. Rodriguez picks and chooses what …showed first 75 words of 1331 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1331 total…wanted it to say, what he needed it to say. Rodriguez then chose to write about Hoggart’s theory the way he saw it and thought he fit into it. Along the way, Hoggart’s true theory got lost and disheveled by Rodriguez. This is the direct outcome of Rodriguez’s longing for an identity and yearning to relate to someone, or something. Rodriquez successfully manipulated Hoggart’s theory and made it into his own.