Through The Tunnel Character Analysis Essay

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What risks are worth taking? In the story “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing, Jerry is a young boy who has always done what he is told, always followed the rules and always been very eager to please his mother. When Jerry decides he is sick of the old familiar beach, he wants something new and exciting. Jerry wants to be independent and show his mother and himself what he is capable of accomplishing. Jerry makes a very believable character because of these emotions and traits. He has emotions and feelings just like regular people even though he is fictional. Jerry seems like a real person because he is willing to do whatever it takes to reach his goal. When Jerry’s mother asks him to stay on the beach with her for a day he says, “It was a torment to waste a day of careful self training” (Lessing 362-363). Jerry sits through that waste of a day with his mother because he knows that she was worried about his well-being …show more content…

When “he preserved his nervous, uncomprehending smile” (359). Jerry feels awkward around the boys because he is an outsider, he’s not from there like the other boys are. Jerry also experiences “An immense, swelling pain fill[ing] his head, and then the darkness crack[s] with an explosion of green light. His hands, groping forward, met nothing; and his feet, kicking back, propelled him out into the open sea.” (366). Jerry was extremely afraid when he got near the end of the tunnel. He is afraid because he was running out of air and he could see the sky but he kept swimming and swimming but he couldn't reach the surface. When Jerry would get done swimming his nose would bleed incredibly because of the pressure so deep in the water and after he got done swimming through the tunnel he was sure that his eyes had burst because of how deep he was (366). Jerry is putting himself in a very difficult situations because he wants to be

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