Short Story: Jerry's Darkness

The short story Through the Tunnel by Doris Lessing is full of symbolism about the transition out of childhood. Doris accomplishes this by writing about a young boy named Jerry and his journey swimming through the tunnel. During this difficult transition the main character gains the tools he will need during adulthood. Lessing uses symbolism abundantly in Through the Tunnel to emphasize on the theme of the transition from childhood to adulthood.

His body isn’t ready for the direct sunlight and his mind cannot comprehend the world in comparison to what he felt he knew. In time, the man is able to see that all of the previously “known” information he had was completely false but also that he must start a different journey in order to find himself as the way of life he was previously use to, in which guessing was the way of judging knowledge, is ineffective and useless to him now. Finally, the prisoner returns to the cave with a new base of knowledge. He tried to share this information with his fellow prisoners but after hearing about his travels and that they were in fact wrong the prisoned men said to him that “up he went and down he came without eyes, and that it was better to not even think of ascending” ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) . He is then met with resistance in offering them help and freedom from their binds. They threaten “if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender and put him to death”, it is as if they feel that his “loss of sight” is death to them and they are perfectly happy with the information that they know to be true ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) .

The story “Through The Tunnel” by Doris Lessing is about a boy named Jerry who vacations with his mother. Jerry matures over time because he wanted to be included in the group of older boys. He thought he would be accepted if he swam through an underwater tunnel. Jerry’s swim through this tunnel is a passage from boyhood to adulthood. Doris Lessing uses the symbol of the tunnel to illustrate a boy’s childhood to adulthood.

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.

Growing up, many young boys idolized the war heroes in movies such as Saving Private Ryan and American Sniper. However, in the poem "Tunnels," Yusef Komunyakaa portrays the theme of the true fear and lack of purpose experienced by the American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War. This was done by showing the reader that any mistake could easily result in the death of a soldier. Through his use of poetic form and structure, figurative language, and diction Komunyakaa is able to effectively convey his theme.

When the prisoner turns his head towards the light of the fire his eyes hurt him and he is confused because he is unable to see the objects of the shadows he had been subjected to his entire life. It is because of this pain and confusion that the prisoner wishes to return to the life that he is accustomed to, and the reality he knows, the world of the shadows. We are asked to envision the stubbornness displayed by this prisoner to leave the world of the shadows, a stubbornness which causes him to be dragged into the sunlight. Upon seeing the light of the sun the prisoner is temporarily blinded, unable to see anything around him, blinding him more than when he was a prisoner of the cave. Eventually the prisoner’s vision adjusts and he is able to see more clearly. His mind will first be able to recognize the shadows, then moving on to reflections of objects in the water, and lastly the objects themselves. This new sight leads the prisoner to question the colours and objects around him. He questions what it is that causes him to being able to see all the things he can, compared to only seeing poor reflections of objects in the cave. The prisoner eventually concludes that it is the sun which illuminates all around him and is the source of his sight.

There was a fuzzy muddled scene in his eyes when he woke up. The scenary was blurred and disrupted with the refraction of bright white. He looked around as the haze began to fade. He tried to gain awareness of where he was, he had no

It is believed that when people die their life flashes before their eyes, or they identify a white light at the end of a hallway and they feel compelled to walk toward it. No matter what is seen, it is all created by their imagination. In a few cases, the images can be almost as real as reality, such as in the story “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce where a man believes he escaped death just to be snapped back into reality. His demise may have been quick to come to the men who caused it, but thanks to the author and the main character’s imagination; the time before his death was full of prolonged suspense. Ambrose Bierce utilizes four major techniques that intensify the feelings of suspense from the reader, which include

I froze. I could not move. I could not think.” What, what was going on”?

To his dismay, the final decision had been made, and at this point, the character swooned. Not losing complete consciousness, the character lost awareness of his surroundings. Upon awakening, the character felt a sense of terror, because he was surrounded in complete darkness. Faint remembrances of his trial flashed through his mind, striking him with terror and fear. To his best understanding, the man assumed that he was in a dungeon, though unaware of the measurements of his cage.

However, all of this is not to say that experience is the cure all to tunnel vision. If it was, then cases like Michael Morton's would not have happened. Loyalties, cognitive biases and emotional commitments are here to stay; they are part and parcel of the human condition.i But there are other recommendations for how to address tunnel vision on several levels. Bandes recommends that institutional directives should be made clearer and more concrete, and institutional culture and incentives should be addressed.ii That review mechanisms should exist at every level of decision-making.iii While also pointing out that, however that review may become simply a way of reinforcing group norms.iv In order for that to work the process needs to be explicitly structured to perform a critical role.v Banes takes note that, review will be ineffective without transparency, rules governing record keeping, record sharing and discovery must strive to ensure that a full investigative record exists and is accessible for review.vi Banes finally believes that, training of both supervisory and lower level personnel must explicitly address the dynamics of tunnel vision.vii That if these dynamics can be better understood, they can be flagged, and, that perhaps, with sufficient will and sufficient knowledge, we can correct for them.viii

Throught the tunnel, a story that has multiple symbolic statements, the most important one , the tunnel. This story tells us about a boy who We could say blood was spilt that day at thee bay. “-his nose bled so badly that he turned dizzy and had to lie limply over the big rock like a bit of seaweed,” (382). Blood in this story and in every other story symbolizes effort, risk, warning, caution.

Whenever someone accomplishes a huge achievement, they have stories of how hard they worked to earn it. In almost every single story of accomplishment, there are obstacles the hero has to overcome. Doris Lessing, a British novelist, had a very hard childhood, full of struggles to survive, and yet she published 86 novels and won a Nobel Prize in Literature. In Lessing’s short story “Through the Tunnel,” the main character Jerry faces the challenge of swimming through a long underwater passage. A close examination of the story shows dark objects represent setbacks while the light represents achievement. Thus, the initial darkness of the tunnel’s appearance, the luminous color of the ocean, and the changing of light during Jerry’s passage through

I had two goals in writing this paper. The first goal being to get a good grade. The second was to thoroughly bring out the theme of symbolism in “Through the Tunnel”. I achieved my second goal, and hopefully my first, by carefully analyzing the story and taking notes in preparation for writing my paper. I then took my notes and translated them into something readable, which is much harder than it sounds. During the editing process, I had a peer review sheet that was to help me strengthen the weak points in my paper. Unfortunately, the review sheet helped me very little. On the subject of strong and weak points, I feel the strongest point of my paper is that I always have a quote to back up my point, but on the other hand I feel my weakest

On the other end of the line was released October 31st 2008. It was directed by James Dobson and written by Tracey Jackson. James and Tracey have been in the movie business for a long time and they have other projects that were very successful. Tracey is known for the movie confessions of a shopaholic. It did not receive high ratings in the US however it was released in so many other countries such as: Singapore, Bahrain, Italy, Argentina, Netherlands Germany, Mexico, and South Korea. The movie is a romantic comedic, “chick flick”. However I believe the movie has a lot to offer in terms of culture difference, marriage, and gender between India and The United States.