Public vs. Private: A Rhetorical Analysis of Hunger of Memory Anonymous 11th Grade

In his memoir Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez examines the relationship between his intimate, spanish-speaking childhood and the public life he leads as a student and a writer. A patchwork of often-conflicting identifiers -- Mexican-American, economically-disadvantaged, Catholic, queer, and (eventually) writer -- Rodriguez's identity shifts constantly. Often attempting to simultaneously place himself into opposing categories - namely, public and private - Rodriguez further complicates his identity, never allowing the reader to define his individuality. A shifting tide, Rodriguez’s identity ebbs and flows, quietly eroding its cliffy shores only for an undertow to suddenly fling up sand and carve out another basin in the ocean floor. Like the sea, his identity Rodriguez's is marked by one sole constant: change. In fact, the only term Rodriguez concretely defines himself with is Writer, a sort of meta-identity that allows him to fluidly, endlessly reshape his sense of self. Furthermore, because a writer cannot exist without its reader, Rodriguez makes his ultimate identity a public one, dependent upon the perspective and observation of onlookers. Compounding this further, Rodriguez italicizes and...