Thinking Too Much: A Response To Thinking As A Hobby By William Golding

Decent Essays
Thinking Too Much: A Response to “Thinking as a Hobby” by William Golding From the very beginning of “Thinking as a Hobby”, I knew me and William Golding are very different people. While he does bring up many things that make one think twice about their own thoughts, I disagree with a few of his ideas. William Golding tends to see things black and white, while I tend to see a whole spectrum when it comes to people’s thinking processes. In this piece Golding introduces three grades of thinking. Grade three was the lowest level of thought. It’s when there are the people who put their feelings before logic. It’s almost like they feel as if they are thinking very hard about something however they don’t do anything about it so then they are just left with the feeling that the thought has caused. For example, a single mother who is only making enough money to barely make ends meet gets depressed that she can’t do more for her children so she calls in to work. The next grade was grade two, which Golding states “is the detection of contradictions” (1). This grade reminds me a little bit of myself in my high school years. When I was in my teen years I was always pushing and pushing the limits of every situation I was in. I always felt the need for an argument, even if it was deemed unwinnable for both sides. I …show more content…
I thought it was strange that he thought Einstein was on the same level as him when he has no idea or proof what his thinking process was like. Was he only comparing himself to him because it was well known that he was a genius? Or is this just me using grade two thinking? This might be a far reach but perhaps Golding thought of grade two thinking to dismiss people disagreeing with

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    William Golding was an English novelist, playwright, and poet. Golding was best known for his Novel, Lord of the Flies, in which he won the Nobel Prize for Best Literature and was awarded the Booker Prize in 1980 for Fiction. In this book, the author talks about how a group of British boys crash land on a stranded island with no adults. In the beginning, Ralph the main character, takes charge due to his age and sets up a way for everyone to share their ideas through the Conch. Later Ralph is rivaled by the antagonist of the book, Jack, who does not believe in following a certain set of rules and is more into giving orders than taking them.…

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Beezlebub” is a Hebrew name for the devil and translated, it literally means “lord of the flies”. Imagine what a novel, called, The Lord of the Flies is about, particularly one written in the early Cold War Era. At that time, anxiety about nuclear holocaust and the destructive competitiveness between the Communist East and Democratic West were everybody’s reality. William Golding not only imagined the potential of such a novel, but in 1954 he wrote it, calling it, The Lord of the Flies. Exploiting the nerve-wracking tension of the Cold War, Golding sets his novel on an island that becomes a microcosm of the world.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conflicts can arise in various ways, such as arguments, misunderstandings, or even want for power. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the author uses the writing strategy called ethos to show the credibility of a character named Jack, who was nominated to be the chief of the island the boys are stranded on. The boys are trying to be civilized by having a leader on the island, but when disputes about who is qualified to be chief emerge, the boys lost their humanity and become savages. Lord of the Flies portrays the theme of power throughout the novel through the position of chief on the island. William Golding uses the writing strategy called ethos to present his credibility towards the other boys so that he could be chief…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    How does Golding make this a pivotal moment in the novel and is it effective? Golding uses various techniques throughout this passage to show it as an effective pivotal moment in the novel. He does this throughout the semantic field of the passage, however he best does this when he represents Jack as a different person and animalistic, separated from society and the rest of the group. This is effective because it shows the start of the decline in the groups sanity and link to home, hinting that Jack is slowly devolving to an earlier state of intellect, unable to recognize himself "He looked... no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger," Jack is shown as the beginning of this decline, and as he is looked up to by the boy's,…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The nature of man according to Hobbes in chapter 13 of Leviathan is that men always desire power and will never be satisfied with the amount of power that they have, because of this men will always try to gain more power. This power hungry mindset causes men to be in a constant state of competition and war. Men will continue to fight for power. Without rules and a common leader men will become so power hungry that they will destroy themselves and others. William Golding fulfills Hobbes ideas about man with Lord of the Flies in the moments when, Jack and Ralph are fighting for power, when Simon dies and when Piggy dies.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Judith Sargent Murray

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Judith Sargent Murray very efficiently debunks the idea that men and women are not equal in their intellect in her essay “Equality of the sexes”. During the 17th and 18th century, women we’re viewed as lesser than men in society. Young girls did not receive the same education as young boys, leaving them at a disadvantage. Because of this, women were forced into doing the domestic jobs in society, such as, sewing, cooking and cleaning. Murray find it preposterous that women are treated so differently and looked down upon in society.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Lord Of The Flies Quotes

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages

    What would you do if you were Ralph stranded on an island with a group of boys? Lord of the Flies written by William Golding in 1954 . Ralph is a 12 year old boy is known as the chief or leader of the group. He is tall , skinny , and charismatic. The book took place during the Cold War ; however it was based during World War 2.…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ralph's Villain Quotes

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Golding uses Ralph’s role in the mock fight to make ideas of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ more complex than they seemed. From the beginning of the book, Golding has positioned the reader to see Ralph as the ‘hero’ and Jack as the ‘villain’ through various techniques, one of them being that Ralph is the focaliser. So far it has been quite clear to us who the hero is, however the mock fight changes our views on this. While it seems likely that jack would take part and enjoy hurting one of the boys, it is shocking and concerning for the reader when they find out that Ralph “was fighting to get near, to get a handful of [Roberts] brown, vulnerable flesh”. The noun phrase ‘brown, vulnerable flesh’ suggests that Robert was an innocent and easy target which positions the reader to feel sympathy for Robert and consequently feel a disliking towards Ralph.…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Golding’s article, Why Boys Become Vicious, he stated, “But what must be true is that we can be twisted and distorted beyond recognition by the guidance—or lack of it—that we absorb directly from our families. If there is no one around to guide children, then they go wrong.” He also expresses a similar idea in his book, The Lord of The Flies, when a group of boys are abandoned on an island and must work towards getting rescued while also preserving humanity. This is experienced through the eyes of the main characters Ralph, Piggy, Jack and Simon. Golding proclaims the theme that if one does not tend to the agitating ways of savagery, it can spread and destroy, by using two predominant symbols in the book, the painted mask and fire.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Sound of the Selfish Throughout history many powerful figures and their supporters have committed callous deeds to fulfill personal needs and beliefs. For example, Leopold II, the colonial leader of Belgium, was assigned to help improve the lives of the inhabitants, but instead killed over fifteen million Congolese for his own personal gain, committing some of the most atrocious crimes in history with the help of his followers. The boys in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, suffer from this, a problem that has lived on through many generations. In the midst of a vicious war, the boys crash land on a desolate island and quickly elect a leader to control the society. However, the structure soon falls apart due to material pleasures being prioritized.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Importance of Common Ground In everyday life it's important to find common ground, to relate to one another, in order to get things done. It's an essential part of life. This theme of “Finding Common Ground” is represented in the texts, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer in a variety of ways.…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Piggy's Symbols

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages

    William Golding uses his novel, Lord of the Flies, to show his point of view on basic social structure and behaviors. Golding does this by having the boys act and talk in the way he perceives society to be. In chapter one, Jack says that "we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything" (Golding, William 42) which reveals one of The authors points. In the novel, Golding makes the boys start out how society expects British boys to act and turns them into savages of nature along with showing how social structure and expectations changes people and how they are affected without society.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Marilyn Manson once said “All the seven deadly sins are man’s nature. To be greedy. To be hateful. To have lust” say that all people can hide these thought of being greedy, hate and lust but some are better at hiding this but when it moment s a solitude from the world being greedy, hateful and craving the lust can show more than usual. This quote supporting the thought of Golding idea shown through Lord of flies.…

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Truth about Human Nature The social contract is something that we all automatically agree to once we’re born into society. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies investigates, like many philosophers before him, this social contract and its extent of control over people. He does this through the story of a plane full of young boys when it crash lands on a desert island, leaving them to create their own society.…

    • 1439 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Psychological Analysis of Lord of the Flies In Lord of the Flies, young boys ranging from six to twelve are stranded on a desert island after their plane has crashed. They have no connection or communication with society and the outside world, therefore they have no adults regulating their actions and behaviors. Without adults controlling them, they are able to make their own rules to abide by. But as the novel progresses, some of the boys begin to disregard the rules and societal rules that they were once familiar with.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays