In this essay i will be explaining how Ron Suskind presents the difficulties of Cedric’s education in part one and part two. This striking story is about a young man named Cedric who finds it hard to cooperate in school, Ballou High School. He is continuously getting verbally abused by mainly students and not being treated fair by teachers.Ron Suskind uses various languages techniques to represent the difficulties in Cedric’s education.
A language technique that Ron Suskind uses is a metaphor, a quote in part one that displays Cedric’s difficulty in school is ”The arduous odyssey of Cedric”. Here, the writer compares Cedric and Odysseus. Cedric is on a long Journey to his objective similar to what Odysseus does. Arduous means long and tiring which relates to how long Cedric’s school journey is and odyssey is a Greek myth where a specific character named Odysseus is on a journey by himself battling monsters and dangers just like how Cedric does against the other students to become better then them, also he has to avoid other students picking on him because he’s smart and focused. Ron Suskind uses this quote to suggest that in Ballou High Cedric has a exhausting long journey that he has to face as an individual to reach is goal which is to make it into M.I.T. This will be a tough challenge for Cedric knowing that only a small proportion of people succeed in Ballou High and is almost certain that you fail due to the issues in the school. This displays one of the difficulties Cedric has to overcome in his education.
Ron Suskind uses another metaphor to describe the difficulties of Cedric’s education the quote he uses to display this is ‘I have to run twice the distance to catch up’. This suggests that this is just like a race because Cedric has to endure to reach first place and do better the everyone else in M.I.T since the are more fortunate regarding their school and social life. This also suggests that Cedrics old school, Ballou High, has pushed him back a position in the race and needs to endure even more to be level with the others. This quote shows how far he is from the Students who are already doing better then him which also relates to the quote Being a minority and a high achiever means you have to carry extra baggage. This displays that the differences between Ballou high and M.I.T because of how successful you have to be in your studies.
Ron Suskind uses another metaphor to describe the difficulties in Cedric’s education by using the quote “It didn’t come to much of a surprise to anyone in the school to the city’s most crime infested ward.” This quote implies that in Ballou High there is crime everywhere since recently a student was shot dead by another student. The word infested determines that all the tragic events that have been happening is unwanted like a disease. Crime infested ward means that there is a virus of crime going around throughout the whole city and its distracting students like Cedric
Another Language technique that Ron Suskind uses is a personification, he uses this language technique in the quote “Being a minority and a high achiever means you have to carry extra baggage”. The writer has used this quote to imply that Cedric is a part of the minority that needs to do extra to gain access to do well in education and be a high achiever whereas if you weren’t part of that minority you would have easy access to being a high achiever and making it to a good university just like what Cedric wants to do to get into M.I.T. Cedric isn’t doesn’t feel privileged enough to have all the educational resources that the people who are not part of Cedric’s minority.
Ron Suskind uses another personification to present another difficulty in Cedric’s education, this is used in the quote “Failure is persuasive even seductive”. The writer has used this quote to suggest that students in Ballou high are easily persuaded to fail in their education such as students dealing drugs, going prison and even ending up dead. This has a massive effect towards the students who want to be successful like Cedric. The reason why is because of all the chaos that is causes by violent and arrogant students who cause fights throws in a difficult barrier to get across for students like Cedric. The word ‘persuasive suggests that Failure in Ballou High is the only thing you can get out of it. This also means that a small proportion of students succeed and failure is persuading them to stop succeeding.
The writer uses a simile in display the quote “so much of what goes on here is like crowd control” this quote is used by the writer to implicate that most students are disruptive in school so if Cedric can not learn in school so he’ll have to teach himself outside school or at home. This is also evidence how Ballou High cant compare to how they teach in M.I.T which puts Cedric at a disadvantage. This quote links the quote “The Arduous Odyssey of Cedric” because it relates to how he is on a long tough journey reaching his goal to where only a minority reach to.
In conclusion Ron Suskind used various language techniques to present the difficulties in Cedric’s education in part one and part two. In my opinion the quote ‘arduous odyssey of Cedric’ is the most effective quote then all the others is because it specifies how much of a difficulty journey Cedric’s education is. My evidence of this is that Odysseus -the character from the Greek myth- is on a long journey as an individual who fights monsters and faces dangers which could ruin his chance of reaching his objective. This links to what Cedric does against the other students he has to be better then to get to M.I.T and teachers making hiss feel unprivileged of his education. Fortunately for Cedric he reaches his objective which is to get into M.I.T also like Odysseus when he reaches his goal which was to get to his homeland. This is the reason why I think the quote ‘Arduous odyssey of Cedric’ is the most effective quote to the essay question ‘Compare the ways in which Ron Suskind presents the difficulties of Cedric’s education in part one and part two’.

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