Through The Tunnel

The transition from childhood to adolescence is a difficult process with many obstacles. In Doris Lessing’s short

barely giving his brother a dime when he was asked to pitch in money for his dad’s birthday gift because he wanted to buy cards at the shop so he could try and get Ken Maynard, a rare card, and when his brother asks “Who’s more important—him or your father?” Jerry doesn’t exactly know how to answer the question correctly.

Jerry Starts as a new kid at this Cathlic boys school called Trinity high. He has just recently lost his mother to illness and lives with his dad in a apartment. Jerry is a quiet kid throughout the story. When Jerry really starts to change is when Archie decides to make him a mark for the Vigils (secret society) assignment. Archie through minipulation is changeing Jerry little by little. A true turning point is when Archie gets Emile Janza, the school bully, to beat jerry up with the help of some middle schoolers. This ultimatly

In the film, Jerry has no control of himself, his thoughts or anything going around in his life. He harbors negative thoughts. Moreover, when he goes to his friend at the garage who vouched for Grimsrud, he is unable to get access to the duo and thus totally lost control of the situation even though he had changed his mind. Epicureanism is also evident in the scene where Jerry shows frustration when removing ice from the vehicle. He was frustrated because he could not be like his father in law and upon realizing that he has been outwitted by the father in law decide to channel his frustrations on the windscreen.

This illustrates how Jerry is the cause for the whole imbalance in the school hierarchy, essentially ruining the power dynamics in the school. This is able to express the idea that the whole "universe" is disturbed due to Jerry's resistance to the manipulation and unfair power

He tries out to be the quarterback, but he is knocked down again and again. He questions whether or not he should even come back to practice the second day because he was hit so hard. While he hated being beaten up so bad, he was determined to make the football team. This attitude shows throughout the entire story. Jerry is not a quitter, and he is determined to achieve his goals.

This is important because Jerry is dejected after losing to Janza in the boxing match. Sometimes, disturbing the universe is not the right idea as you could feel broken and feel a big burden on

Jerry, despite his relative decency, is victimized by the power structure of the school as well as his peers (Bagnall). “Choosing to disturb the universe means that Jerry himself is thrown into chaos” (Junko). His refusal to conform makes him the prime target of both the Vigils and the school officials, despite admiration from his peers. Cormier makes it clear that moral individuals can not survive unaided in a corrupt, oppressive system (Harris et al.). Jerry, while standing up for what he believes is right, is constantly torn down and abused by Archie’s goons. No one, not even his best friend Goober, came to his rescue to combat his oppressors. Arguably, “the reason Jerry was not saved was because he stood alone” (Harris et al.). Jerry stood alone in refusing to take the chocolates, his abuse by the Vigils, and his eventual physical and mental destruction by Janza. In fact, his destruction makes him into a martyr. His surrender in the end makes him an even more realistic hero and shows that it takes more people to fight powerful figures (Peck). Cormier challenges the perception of the modern “Superman” figure and replaces him with an “Average Joe”: a jack of all trades but master at none. Despite his defeat, Jerry’s legacy will live beyond him, whether publicly celebrated or privately discussed by Trinity students (Siegler). Jerry’s battle could have been won if his peers acted against the power structures as

At the beginning of the book, Jerry was introduced as a sad, insecure boy who had his heart broken by the thought of his dead mother. Jerry wanted his mother back and let himself think that it was all just a dream, and he would have his mom back soon. Jerry tried out for the football team very undetermined of even making it. The coach wanted him to come back tomorrow with a more preppy attitude towards being a member of the team. Archie could see the struggling freshman in football tryouts and wanted to give Jerry an assignment, but Obie thought it was a bad idea because Jerry's mother recently passed. Archie thought that it was the perfect opportunity for a treatment.

He has been through alot in his life like his mother died of cancer which has him isolated. He is always engaged in a battle with himself and with the outside world. He looks up to his father who is a pharmacist thinks his father has a dull and boring life but admires him. A strength jerry has is he does not complain about the crap he has gone through in his life and at school and it pays off at the end, his biggest weakness is he can’t win the battle with himself and the outside world.

He was not the type of kid to do his homework, bring home good grades to mom, and marry his high school sweetheart like many of his peers around him at the time. In fact, he had larger aspirations that were very unconventional ambitious. “I want to set the world under a marquee that read: ‘Jerry Weintraub Presents.’” Jerry ran away from home with his friend Stuie at about twelve years old. He believed that the only way to learn was from real experiences and it was almost impossible for him to learn anything in the classroom. “All life was a theatre and I wanted to put it up on stage.” Jerry’s life was full of crazy ideas is one of the motifs that is scattered throughout this

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.

The characterization of Jerry illustrates the stages of maturing and becoming independent. In the beginning of the story, Jerry is depicted as young and immature. The immaturity of Jerry is shown when he is trying to capture the older boys’ attention. In order to capture their attention, “he began splashing and kicking in the water like a foolish dog.” This action conveys that Jerry is still immature, and wants to join the older kids. After seeing the boys pass through the tunnel, Jerry also wants to pass through in order to be a part of their group. In order

Jerry tries to act older so that he can fit in with the boys. When

Initially, our first thoughts of Jerry at the beginning of the story, is that he acts immature and is burdened within a circle of maternal protection. During the opening of the story, the author conveys Jerry’s relative childishness by labeling him as “the boy”. The author also uses the mother to demonstrate his youth and how he is trapped in a circle of maternal protection which leads us to think that he is lonely due to that reason. In this part, “His mother walks in front of him, carrying a bright white strap in one hand” tells us that because the mother was walking in front of him, it gives us the impression that the mother still thinks of him as a boy that needs to be protected from any potential harm. We see more of Jerry’s immaturity and how the burden of protection leads his actions as we go through the story. During the part where Jerry sees the group of boys acting free-spirited, we see that he is overcome with desire to be with them, probably because he feels that because he is always in the circle of protection making him feel lonely and isolated from everyone. At first, he is added into the group and begins to have fun jumping from the cliff into the water with the other boys. Later on however, he starts to act immature when he realizes he could not do the same thing the other boys were doing. That was, underwater for a long time and going through the dark tunnel and he becomes scared. In this passage,“... In a panic of failure, he yelled up, in English, “Look at me! Look!” and he began splashing and kicking the water like a