Rites Of Passage In 'Brothers Are The Same And Through The Tunnel'

Every person begins their life with birth and resolves with death, rites of passage help people feel apart of society, where the changes are vast, amending both themselves as well as their society they reside to. In Beryl Markham’s short story, “Brothers Are The Same”, Temas, a sixteen-year-old boy in the Masai tribe, dreams of achieving manhood through the killing of a lion, nevertheless in doing so, he must show wholly no signs of fear. Remarkably, throughout Temas's ordeal, he fears failure and disappointment, however, with the help of an olden enemy, Medoto, Temas not only succeeds his right of passage though also originates a friend from an enemy. Similarly, in the movie, Tuck Everlasting, directed by Jay Russell, an independence-seeking girl, who goes by the name of Winnie, feels as though she needs to be free, and seek each and every form of adventure in her life. Even so, Winnie faces a difficult choice that will last a lifetime, and in the end, she chooses the right path and prevents anyone to resolve the same mistake as a friend once made. Although Temas and Winnie face different challenges from the influences being pushed upon them, both opt for decisions that change them each into a superior version of themselves.

Within "Through the Tunnel," a short story by Doris Lessing, Jerry, the adolescent protagonist, seeks conformity with others but later resolves to, “[it] was no longer of the least importance to go to the bay,” (Lessing 4). At the beginning, he was filled with determination and excitement to swim through the tunnel and float above to the welcoming arms of the French boys. However, with every practice session, his hesitation to attempting the dive was slowly creeping over his desire to actually do it. The bruises and constantly loss of blood led to a faltering mentality.

In the consuming darkness her body began to float upwards. Her mouth was open, letting in small discreet amounts of air, trying to buy as much time as she could before she ran out. Her fragile body was suspended in an awkward posture with her torso jutted forward and her limbs moving like a clockwork doll. Amongst the relentless whipping of the undulating waves she could hear her sister’s scream. She felt herself rise upwards as she continued to flail. She had to survive. She had to somehow reach the surface of the water and survive. She didn’t want to die. Not now. She was running out of air, no longer able to fight the urge to breathe. She looked up to see the sunlight, but she saw none. Then it dawned on her. She wouldn’t make it. She let

In "Brothers are the Same" Temas he had to prove to everyone that he was becoming an adult. Temas, faces a lion that represents honor, manhood, and a girl to gain the lacked self-pride he must now obtain. In "Through the Tunnel" for Jerry, he just wanted to determain wheather or not he could go through the tunnel . For Jerry, the tunnel and getting past it only represents confidence and having done something that seemed impossible. I think that both situations were a good way to show an example for growingup. The theme for both stories were very similar.

The Rite of Passage is about young females who file their teeth down into points. This ritual is done to show their soul, and to beautify yourself. The teeth sharpening is done in Indonesia specifically to the Mentawai tribe, to serve everlasting life, and to purify your soul.

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.

Maturity is a state that everybody tries to reach during their lives. Children spend their infancy, and sometimes adolescence, growing up and learning how to behave in the adults and work world. Schools teach them dissimilarities between these two different worlds. There isn’t a precise age in which kids become mature, it depends on the experiences they had, their society, their family and other causes. In the movie and novel The Giver, the community has a rite of passage where children, during the annual ceremony, become more mature and assume more responsibilities until they get into adulthood.

He works on his goal none stop doing everything he can to improve his chances of going through the tunnel. He asks his mother to buy him goggles to see the tunnel. He holds his breath under the water for long periods of time strengthening his lungs to get ready for the real thing. Jerry also starts working out so he can be stronger and faster in the water increasing his odds of making it through because it will be shorter time and it will be less time on his lungs. Jerry is now ready not only mentally but physically to swim through the

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

Originally developed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in the early 20th century in his book Rites de Passage, the term liminality refers to the concept in which participants are in the threshold stage of disorientation and suspension from the previous social norm that they were used to. When an individual goes through a rite of passage—also coined by van Gennep—he is cut off from his “old life” and is born again into a new person. However, before he can fully become a new person and finish his rite of passage, he is suspended in a liminal stage that bridges the old self with the newly acknowledged self. In other words, he is in a stage of disorientation and amorphous identity. Found throughout all

In the two short stories, “Brothers are the Same” and “Through the Tunnel” can be similar in some ways, such as the two boys have to go through rite of passage and they both are introduced to problems along the way. But the stories can be different in ways too. Such as Temas and Medoto have to do a rite of passage because it is tribal, Jerry has his own rite of passage. Also, Temas and Medoto have a harder task to go through rites of passage. Temas and Medoto have to kill a lion and all Jerry has to do is swim under a flooded tunnel.

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

In order for Jerry to achieve his goal, he had to prepare, practice, and sacrifice. To practice controlling his breath, Jerry exercised his lungs every day. Jerry exercised so much that his life depended on it. The stress he put in his body made his nose bleed every night after exercising. This event reveals that Jerry is maturing and is working really hard to control his breathing because of the goal he set for himself. As stated in the theme, Jerry is done preparing to control is breathing and is now practicing. Jerry wanted to see what was under the rock, so he decided to learn to control his breathing. After the first day of practicing, the longest he stayed underwater until his chest started hurting was fifty-two seconds. At night he dreamt of the cave in the rock, which motivated him to practice more. He became so concentrated at exercising his lungs every day that, “The day and the next, Jerry exercised his lungs as if everything, the whole of his life, all that he would become, depended upon it. Again his nose bled at night, and his mother insisted on his coming with her the next day” (17). Jerry is determined to control his breath as the quote stated “Jerry exercised his lungs as if everything, the whole of his life, all that he would become, depended on it” (17). He doesn’t care what gets in his way, even if his nose bled every night after exercising. Characterization

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