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Passage:
My childhood was,on the whole, happyand straight forward, and I felt affection for most of the grown-ups with whom I was brought in contact. I remembera very definite change whenI reached what inmodernchild psychology is called the‘latency period’. At this stage, I began to enjoy using slang, pretending to have no feelings, and being generally ‘manly’. I began to despise my people, chiefly because of their extreme horror of slang and their absurd notion that it was dangerous to climbtrees. So many things were forbidden to methat I acquired the habit of deceit in which I persisted upto the age of twenty one. It became second nature to me to think that whatever I was doing had better be kept to myself and I have never quite overcome the impulse to concealment which was
thus generated. I still havean impulse to hide what I am reading when anybody came into the room,andto hold my tonguegenerally as to whereI havebeen, and what I have done. It is only by a certain effort of will that I have overcome the impulse, which was generated by the years during which I had to find my way among a set of foolish prohibitions.
The years of adolescence were to me very lonely and very unhappy. Both in the life of the emotions and in the life of the intellect, I was obliged to preserve an impenetrable secrecy towards my people. My interests were divided between sex, religion and mathematics.
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