Book Summary Essay: Through The Tunnel

In the short story "Through the Tunnel", Doris Lessing describes the adventure of Jerry, a young English boy trying to swim through an underwater tunnel.  Throughout the story, the author uses the third person omniscient point of view to describe the boy's surroundings and to show us both what he and the other characters are thinking and what is happening around them.  By using this point of view, the author is able to describe the setting of the story, give a detailed description of the characters, and make the theme visible.

In life, one must overcome their fears in order to achieve or successfully attain a certain goal in their mind. The short story “Through the Tunnel”, by Doris Lessing tells us about how Jerry builds confidence and maturity throughout the story, by overcoming his fear of going through the dark and scary tunnel underneath the water. The author portrays the idea of overcoming one’s fear to achieve a goal through Jerry, who was once a childish and isolated character, had begun his risky adventure of going through the tunnel to prove his worth to a group of boys and along the way discovers what he truly wants. Over time he becomes more mature and in the end, gain self-acceptance.

The settings are important in a story because they tell where and when the story takes place. A reader should always focus on the setting, so he will not get lost in the story. In Doris Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel,” the story focuses on a boy named Jerry trying to accomplish something very difficult while his mother wants him to stay safe. He sees some boys swimming through a challenging tunnel and he tries to go through the tunnel to impress them in order to become friends with them. The setting in “Through the Tunnel” has an impact on the characters, the plot, and the symbols.

In the story “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing the main character Jerry is young and sees a group boys do something that he finds interesting, Going through the tunnel. The problem is he is too young and too weak to do it. The boys were Judging and excluding him and it made him sad. Jerry used the negative actions of the french boys as motivation to set a goal of swimming through the tunnel before he leaves. Although Jerry is not physically strong or mature he has a large amount of mental strength and uses what should be his weakness be his strength.

was a new route and this was only the second time that Mendez had taken it.

The story Through the Tunnel is about a young boy named Jerry and his mother going on vacation to a beach resort that they have previously visited. The villa they are staying at consist of two beaches. The safe, crowded beach is where Jerry’s mother goes and the wild Rocky Bay is where Jerry ends up spending most of his time. While Jerry swims in the water at the wild bay, he sees a group of boys diving into the water. Jerry knew right when he saw them, he wanted to be just like them. In his eyes, “They were big boys—men to Jerry” (Lessing 148). To show that he was brave, he found the courage to dive off the

A part of maturing is finally doing things independently without the supervision from parents. In her short story, “Through the Tunnel”, Doris Lessing conveys the concept of maturing through becoming self-sufficient. Lessing uses characterization and symbolism to show that being self-reliant is a part of growing up.

Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” describes a traveler faced with a choice of which one of two roads to travel. He knows not where either road might lead. In order to continue on his journey, he can pick only one road. He scrutinizes both roads for the possibilities of where they may take him in his travels. Frost's traveler realizes that regret is inevitable. Regardless of his choice, he knows that he will miss the experiences he might have encountered on the road not taken.

(1) Toni Morrison’s Beloved takes place after the Civil War during the Reconstruction era, when the violent oppression of the black race continued, with flashbacks to the horrific trauma of the early 19th century slavery period. In Margaret Atwood’s review of Beloved in

Now comparing these stories, Jerry and the narrator of “Sixteen” are very much alike, just as they are apart. Maureen Daly and Doris Lessing really give the reader a good feel for the characters and mood, making the tone easy to comprehend. In “Sixteen”, the narrator is very serious when talking about how she is, in fact, quite smart, and knows what she’s doing when it comes to life. Along with this, Jerry is very serious about practicing his breath golding and swimming because he wants to be able to get to and go through the tunnel. It’s a goal, not a dream. Both of these characters take the reader on a very personal journey; one into the mind and heart, and one into the process of him becoming a “man”. Two very difficult things to normally talk about. The authors create anxiety for the readers when Jerry is actually in the tunnel. He begins counting, higher and higher, the longer he’s in the tunnel, making the reader think, “There’s no way he’s going to make it out.” There is also a sense of anxiety in

When Jerry swam to the bottom he found a hole to the other side, he was easily scared when a piece of seaweed touched his lips, it seems Jerry is eager to see the other side but at the same time he's not. He had practiced holding his breath for long strands of time, the local boys were doing it so Jerry thought he would do, but consequences came with it for he got terrible bloody noses that made him dizzy. He had swam back to the hole and in the process of doing so he had ran out of oxygen and lost conscience and floated back up to where he had started in the first place, his mom had said “Well, I shouldn’t overdo it. I don’t think you ought to swim anymore

Even though, jerry wants to be accepted and in control of his life, the harsh reality is Jerry’s identity wants to be with his mother. Further throughout the story the tunnel is shown as the symbol of the story; letting the reader know that Jerry senses that it is the door to his identity. Additionally, the chronological structure is effective throughout the story in showing the process of growing up and an insight into Jerry’s transformation. Moreover, the 3rd person omniscient narrator and formal register presents the character of Jerry and his mother in a distanced way and without a biased perspective. This suggests the sense of detachment and alienation that Jerry is starting to feel from his mother as he is growing up and wanting to make his own choices. The story is firstly introduced with a description of the mother carrying a bright striped purse. It was this and other uses of describing Jerry’s surroundings with the use of bright colours symbolising jerry’s childish world and thoughts. In addition, the thought of jerry’s childish thoughts shows his struggle to establish his own identity. The author writes that Jerry goes swimming “over a region where rocks lay like discoloured monsters under the surface”. The simile shows that even though Jerry wants to be independent and swim alone in the bay, he’s terrified of being alone in the water and not seeing his mother again. Briefly, Jerry learns that you cannot

Since a young age, Jerry has always gone to the safe beach with his mother. As told in the story, he is starting to get more mature and is experiencing his coming of age. The safe beach represents him as not being as independent as when he travels to the wild bay alone. “Next morning, when it was time for the routine of swimming and sunbathing, his mother said, ‘Are you tired of the usual beach, Jerry? Would you like to go somewhere else’” (Lessing 1). Jerry’s mother is willing to allow Jerry to break away, but he is still quite nervous. The safe beach represents Jerry as a young boy, a time in which he wants to separate from his mother, yet is apprehensive. “It seemed to him that a long time has passed, and he swam to where he could see his mother…. There she was, a speck of yellow under an umbrella that looked like a slice of orange peel” (Lessing 2). Jerry was nervous about being on the wild bay alone, so he checked to make sure he could see

In the popular television show Friends, they, directly and indirectly, approach the topic of gender, sexuality, and gender norms in various episodes. The episode that this essay will discuss is The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel, which not only shows examples of masculine and feminine stereotypes in relationships, but also gender norms amongst children. Before I discuss this particular episode, I want to talk about the show as a whole. I have never seen an episode before because it honestly did not look relatable and entertaining to me. Since I have never watched it before; I cannot say how I view the show differently now than in the past, but I can say I will most likely never watch another episode.

In M. Scott Peck’s work, The Road Less Traveled, he says “Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words” (81). He also seeks to define love as “The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's personal growth” (81). For Peck, he recognizes that the nature of love is so mysterious that a true satisfactory definition of love has yet to be created and suspects his own definition to be inadequate. He also recognizes that love is categorically vast in that it is divided into eros, philia, agape, and others.