Through The Tunnel Symbolism

Goober’s personality change furthers Jerry’s character development by making Jerry feel sad for Goober and by awakening Jerry’s mind to the evilness of the Vigils and how they destroy people. Jerry thinks that the Vigils and the chocolate sale is just a game, but Goober tells him “It’s more than fun and games, Jerry. Anything that can make you cry and send a teacher away—tip him over the borderline—that’s more than just fun and games” (Pg 160). Jerry feels sad for Goober when he sees just how much Goober is worried about him choosing not to sell the chocolates. “Jerry felt sad suddenly because Goober looked so troubled, like an old man heaped with all the sorrows of the world, his thin face drawn and haggard, his eyes haunted, as if he had awakened from a nightmare he couldn’t forget.” (Pg 129). Overall, Goober’s personality change furthers Jerry character development by helping to develop Jerry’s emotional and mental character. In other words, Goober gets Jerry to think and feel deeply about things happening to him in a way that he never has before.

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

Jerry’s new identity does not last long. He cannot challenge the authority of the Vigils without facing any consequences. Jerry is to be made an outcast rather than a hero.

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 is pushed beyond his limit when swimming through the tunnel and he struggled but persevered and kept swimming. After swimming for an unbearable amount of time, Jerry addresses that, “He was at the end of what he could do… [but] he must go on into the blackness ahead.” (Lessing 5). He acknowledged that he was being pushed out of his comfort zone but instead of giving up, he was determined to make it through. Dissimilarly, when Elizabeth was faced with the challenge of taking responsibility and owning up to her actions after striking out at Celia, she runs away, fearing retribution. After attacking Celia, Elizabeth experiences the feelings of guilt and fear, “…I ran as fast as I could…I was able to creep down to the girls’ washroom and quickly hide…I was so filled with horror…” (Huggan 80, 81). Elizabeth realized that she was going to face punishment for her actions but instead of accepting it she decided to run away from her problems. Jerry, displaying a growth mindset through his ability to conquer challenges, was able to successfully complete his goal. Elizabeth, demonstrating a fixed mindset, runs away from her challenges and faces consequences afterwards. Hence, having a growth mindset that is not afraid of challenges will accomplish more than having a fixed mindset that runs away from

If the relationship between Jerry and his father was more open where they could talk about anything, he might’ve not had to deal with his side of things alone. But instead, he goes it alone, without any help from his dad, his close friends, or even the teachers. In the beginning of chapter 37 on page 247, The Goober explains how he didn’t want to go to school and see Jerry being taunted and teased, so he stayed home for a couple days. When he came late to the raffle fight, he thought about how “the school reminded him of his own betrayals and defections.” Even the teachers don’t help him in the matter, they go along with the students. This is apparent in

Jerry’s job is a helicopter pilot that looks for news and stories for the television. While Jerry has been looking for stories for his news feed, he has saved many lives along the way. When someone saves a person, they are bringing others closer together. By saving lives, Jerry has brought others together in seeing how easy it is to get lost or lose your life in dangerous landforms or adverse conditions.

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.

Jerry does not want to become a school bully like the vigils are. Jerry also does not want his dad to get involved with the vigils. Jerry realizes that his father has a very sad and boring life. Jerry does not want to become just like his father. Jerry wants to have a fun and exciting life.

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

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.

But now that Captain Lee Harden is running the camp, Jerry is upset that he is no longer running things. While Bus is gladly running things with Lee, Jerry is refusing to help out in any way, just because he dislikes Lee. Jerry isn’t actually against most of Lee’s ideas, but because he wants to be the leader, he is taking advantage of the situation by saying the exact opposite of what Lee says, therefore forming two clear divisions of Camp Ryder. Jerry doesn’t hardly care about the safety of the group, all he really wants is to have the power, the control of the group. What Jerry doesn’t realize he’s doing though, is that he’s ruining the precious tribal Camp Ryder hub that he loves so much, that he wants control

By doing odd jobs around town for people, he earned a little extra money for his impoverished family. Jerry loved his family and just wanted the best for them even if it did not appear so all the time. For example, he took his son with him when he worked for Mr. Lorry, showing his son what honest work looked like. Jerry was kind to all of the ladies and gentlemen whom he ran into at Tellson's Bank. They might say that he was actually a nice man, who was just a little rough around the edges. A man will do whatever is needed in trying times.

Soon she walked slowly up the path, swinging her striped bag, the flushed, naked arm dangling beside her. “I want some swimming goggles,” he panted, defiant and beseeching.” This shows that right after Jerry saw the boys go underwater and through the tunnel, he wanted their respect and wanted to show them what he was capable of (also maybe to show that he wasn’t that awkward and weird). I would not do this because I am not that respect hungry and I won’t risk my life to impress a couple of strangers (in this book he tries to impress the