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Through the Tunnel
Lessing's story "Through the Tunnel" was published in 1955, one year before she was declared a prohibited alien in her former home of Southern Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe). While the allusions to...
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Through the Tunnel
At the beginning of the story, Jerry thinks of the beach where he played as a child, the beach where his mother still goes, as the "safe beach." Later, he even thinks of it as a "place for small...
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Through the Tunnel
"Through the Tunnel" is a coming of age story, so the question is spot on in that it correctly characterizes the young Jerry as a boy caught between wanting his mother's attention and security and...
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Through the Tunnel
When Jerry sees the older boys swim through the tunnel in the rocky promontory at the beach, he has a burning desire to do it too. He wants to fit in with these older boys, who seem like men to...
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Through the Tunnel
In "Through the Tunnel," the negative connotations and dangerous imagery associated with the "wild bay" help to convey the theme that growing up can be a painful and scary process. Jerry longs to...
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Through the Tunnel
In the short story "Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing, an 11-year-old English boy named Jerry is on holiday with his mother at a beach area in an unspecified location. Instead of going to the...
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Through the Tunnel
Readers are not expressly told what social class Jerry and his mom belong to, so readers are going to have to infer this answer. I think it is safe to assume that they belong to a middle class or...
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Through the Tunnel
The same decision to swim through the tunnel in the rock promontory?! Absolutely not! Jerry risks his life trying to prove to himself and the older French boys that he is a "man," and the French...
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Through the Tunnel
The short story "Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing tells of an eleven-year-old English boy named Jerry, who goes on vacation with his mother. He and his mother have a congenial and respectful...
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Through the Tunnel
The character of Jerry and his decision to swim through the tunnel so he can join the older boys is at the center of Doris Lessing’s story. The plot is resolved when Jerry succeeds and then...
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Through the Tunnel
The author of "Through the Tunnel" is Doris Lessing.
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Through the Tunnel
There are several comparisons in "Through the Tunnel" about fish. Some of the similes are about the fish, and the other similes are about Jerry being like a fish. The first simile is after Jerry...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry simply has to swim long and hard enough underwater to make it to the other side before coming up for air. As the tunnel has no air holes along the way, this is a "win all/lose" all...
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Through the Tunnel
Doris Lessing's "Through the Tunnel" has maturation as its theme. When Jerry receives only the grave frowning from the bigger boys, he realizes that they perceive him as a mere child. So, he wants...
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Through the Tunnel
The relationship between Jerry and his mother, especially the details that remain unspoken between them, indicate that the quest, one which requires Jerry's separation from her, is a significant...
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Through the Tunnel
Interestingly, this short story was first published in 1955, so it is set quite soon after the Second World War. This could explain the apparent lack of a father figure during the story and the way...
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Through the Tunnel
The older boys that Jerry see at the wild beach play an important role in terms of firstly making Jerry aware that he is still a child and secondly showing him what he needs to do in order to grow...
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Through the Tunnel
In the short story, "Through the Tunnel," by Doris Lessing, the reader encounters a young English boy on vacation at a pivotal point of his life. Use of the third person omniscient point of view...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry's immediate goal is simply to be able to swim through the tunnel, like the "big boys" can. When he first began to swim with them, "He felt he was accepted, and he dived again, carefully,...
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Through the Tunnel
This sort of depends on what you think the less deep meaning is. I think you can say what the first answer says. It is clearly a story about facing up to your fears and overcoming them. Jerry...
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Through the Tunnel
Once Jerry sets his mind to swimming through the tunnel like he saw the big boys do, he practices holding his breath and staying under water day after day. This kind of meticulous practice...
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Through the Tunnel
I think Jerry learned more than only two lessons in the story. One lesson that he learned was the importance of training. I think he always knew the importance of training, which is why he...
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Through the Tunnel
The plot of the story consists of the series of related events concerning Jerry, his mother, and the minor characters. The events develop one or more conflicts in the story. As these events unfold...
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Through the Tunnel
When the story begins, Jerry is anxious for some freedom from his mother's watchful and protective eye. However, "Contrition sent him running after her." He felt badly for wanting this...
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Through the Tunnel
Imagery, connotation, similes, and metaphors very much contribute to the mood and symbolism of the story as well as foreshadow future events. When Jerry goes to his "wild bay," he "slid[es] and...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry is described as "the young English boy" in the first line of the story, but the narrator later specifies that he is eleven years-old. He is at an age where he is still impulsive and...
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Through the Tunnel
By referring to Jerry as the "English boy," the narrator immediately identifies him with his home country, as opposed to the country in which he and his mother are vacationing. Later, despite the...
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Through the Tunnel
Very interesting question. Overtly, "Through the Tunnel" is not a moral story, rather it focuses on the "rite of passage" that Jerry goes through to move from childhood into manhood. However, one...
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Through the Tunnel
With respect, you are asking two different questions. What I think your teacher is after is a demonstration of how two write two different accounts of the same event. Clearly, the way that Jerry...
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Through the Tunnel
For one, the story could not really exist as it is if it were told from Jerry's mother's first-person perspective. Because she is clearly unaware of the dangerous choices Jerry is making when...
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Through the Tunnel
Doris Lessing builds suspense in "Through the Tunnel" by using words with negative connotations and painful imagery to describe Jerry's experience at the "wild bay." Instead of the "safe beach,"...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry practices for his rite of passage through the tunnel by conditioning himself to be able to hold his breath. He obtains swims goggles and practices going underwater and finding the tunnel so...
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Through the Tunnel
This is basically a coming of age story. The beach represents the area for children and those constrained by childhood, Jerry says it is: "a place for small children, a place where his mother might...
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Through the Tunnel
It is important for Jerry to swim through the tunnel, on a literal level, because he wants to be able to fit in with the older, local boys who could do it. These boys seemed "like men to Jerry,"...
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Through the Tunnel
For Lessing's main character, Jerry (an eleven-year-old boy), the turning point happens to be the point of no return when he dives into the water for the last time and pushes his way through the...
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Through the Tunnel
Tone is defined as a writer's attitude, or feelings, toward the subject matter or even toward the writer's audience. Tone can be conveyed through a writer's diction and other literary devices...
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Through the Tunnel
Implicitly, the description of Jerry's longing to be accepted by the older, local boys in the wild bay, help to show that he has begun the process of growing up. "To be with them, of them, was a...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry completes a rite of passage by successfully swimming through the underwater tunnel. When the English boy Jerry, who is on holiday with his mother, first leaves her and goes to the bay, he...
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Through the Tunnel
In Lessing's "Through the Tunnel," the bay is and represents something the boy isn't supposed to do or can't do; it is something the older boys can do, and the boy wants to do. The bay is...
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Through the Tunnel
To begin, the beach is identified as "the safe beach"; it is the beach Jerry and his mother have always visited on holiday. It is a place that he associates with his childhood, with safety, and...
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Through the Tunnel
The beach Jerry has always visited with his mother is very much associated with childhood innocence; even the narrator refers to it as "the safe beach." It is a place without danger where he is...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry's mother is a round character because she adjusts her maternal practices and perspective of her son, allowing him to mature. When they go to the beach on the first morning, Jerry's mother...
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Through the Tunnel
Jerry's mother's beach seems "safe" to him, like a place for children to go and be looked after by their parents. His beach, however, is "wild" and rocky. Rocks lie like "monsters" on the ocean...
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Through the Tunnel
At the beginning of the story, Jerry is on the brink of puberty, trying to separate himself from his mother and prove himself as a young man. He's also a lonely young man who has no male role model...
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Through the Tunnel
Doris Lessing's story has two settings; the "safe beach" on which Jerry's mother sits, and the "wild bay" where the native boys daringly swim through and underwater tunnel. It is in this wild bay...
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Through the Tunnel
After his rejection by the older native boys, who have perceived him as immature as he splashes foolishly in the water, Jerry sits on the rough rock and cries "openly" because he envies their...
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Through the Tunnel
It is very important for Jerry to feel accepted by the boys on the beach because "They were big boys -- men to Jerry." He is no longer at the "safe beach" (representative of childhood), but rather...
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Through the Tunnel
In Through The Tunnel by Doris Lessing, a familiar story of a seemingly over-protective mother emerges. However, Jerry's mother is aware of her shortcomings, and Jerry's obvious need to start...
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Through the Tunnel
After Jerry successfully swims through the tunnel, he feels he has accomplished what he set out to accomplish. He has proven his ability - he has demonstrated his "manhood," so the bay is no...
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Through the Tunnel
The story is set in an unspecified foreign country, possibly South Africa. Jerry and his mother are both English and travel to this country to vacation. Since Jerry is not in his homeland, it is...