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 lot to show for. He also states that ” I, too, felt the compulsive hand of nature and began to find that pointing out contradictions could be costly as well as fun” (223). By saying this it once again shows how grade-two thinking has its ups and downs .

Golding now found himself to be at the top of the thinking world, a grade-one thinker. These thinkers were few and of the elite. Due to the scarcity of these grade-one thinkers, Golding was only able to find them in his books and not of living person. The grade-one thinkers which Golding relates himself to are the scientists and philosophers of the early modern world. Since he is now of a higher thinking ability he finally states that his thinking is now a hobby to him and nothing else. He does describe however that he does indeed encounter one of the few grade-one thinkers that he has so proclaimed. At his first year at Oxford, he meets a Professor Einstein, who just happens to be Dr. Albert Einstein, one of the worlds most brilliant and well looked upon physicists in history. Golding knew this and at this point he states, “My brain reeled. Here I was mingling with the great and yet helpless as the veriest grade-three thinker” (222).

By revealing this thought to the reader he hints towards his relapse of a grade-three thinker. Golding finally found his justification for grade-one thinking and created a system for living for himself. He tries to trick the reader into thinking that he will revert his ways and return to grade-three thinking, but finds himself now to drop his so called “hobby” of thinking to become a professional of grade-one. Since Golding has had this change of thinking he describes how if he were to return to his headmaster’s study he would take the Thinker out of the shadows and into the light of thought.

By trying to pick apart each of the grades of thinking, Golding tries to help the reader understand what each concept behind the different grades of thought is. In examining the concepts one can clearly understand what is needed to determine of what grade of thought a person is capable of handling. By finally determining which grade of thought a reader is, they can answer the question of “How does one think ?”