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Summary of William Golding's 'Thinking as a Hobby'

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Summary of William Golding's 'Thinking as a Hobby'
Thinking As A Hobby "How does one think ?", is a question pondered by many. William Golding has basically broken down thinking into three basic grades of thinking. I believe that Golding 's purpose of this story is to make the reader secretly put their self into one of the styles of thinking. Golding elaborates on each individual grade of thinking to help the reader class them self into a particular grade.

A grade-three thinker is the most common of the grades, "Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill", (Golding 220). He is trying to portray that grade-three thinkers will individually do what it takes to be correct in what they are trying to accomplish. Golding points out three statues which one of his teachers keep above his desk and cupboards, Venus, who represents love, Rodin 's Thinker, which represents pure thought, and a leopard, which is nature. Grade-three thinkers try to use these three statues grasp the concept of thought. Golding 's teacher defines to him that Rodin 's Thinker is the root of all persons thought and how it should be portrayed. If Golding 's teacher 's statement is to be true, then all people in thought should be miserable and unhappy. Grade-three thinkers spend more of their time dealing with the prejudices that they create for themselves.

A grade-two thinker deals more with contradictions than prejudices, which destroys without the power to create. In other means grade-two thinking can be dangerous. In being a grade-two thinker your mind is easily subjected to change without notice. Also in grade-two thinking one is easily able to defend a thought and argue till "blue in the face". In being a grade-two thinker Golding lost the friendship of a girl who he had started to admire.

Golding states "though grade-two thinking is filled with fun and excitement, did not make for content" (222). This statement tells how grade-two thinking has its high points, but does not have a

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