Analysis of Through the Tunnel by Doris Lessing

Analysis of Through the Tunnel by Doris Lessing

“ Through The Tunnel” is written by a lady called Doris Lessing.

Through the tunnel is a short story about a boy called Jerry and his

mother who are on holiday in Spain. There are three themes to the

story, the first is the safe beach . The second is the dangerous

beach. The third is when jerry goes through the tunnel.

The characters are introduced on their first day on holiday where they

are going to the safe beach. It begins when they are walking to the

beach and jerry stops to look at the other beach (dangerous beach),

Jerry’s mother stops and looks for him and asks if he wants to go to

that beach instead. Guilt gets the better of him because his dad is

dead, and he dose not want to leave his mother on her own. The next

day it was the same routine of going to the beach and doing swimming

and sunbathing all day. His mother asks him the same question as the

other day, she wants to let him go and give him some independence. She

also wants him with her to make sure he is ok when he is swimming. She

was having an inner conflict at this point. Inner conflicts are going

on between both characters. As they both carry on walking Jerry

blurts out:

“I’d like to go and have a look at those rocks over there” The writer

makes Jerry say this because in this story Jerry wants to be more

mature like an adult than immature like a kid.

When she left him to go his own ways, Jerry had some more guilt going

through his head. When his mum left him she felt insecure about

letting him go his own ways.

“once Jerry got to the other beach, he went straight to the sea for a

swim. The sea was warm from the heat of the sun, but when the currents

of the deep sea came in, it w...

... middle of paper ...

...e he goes under water for a long time his

nose starts to bleed. He can hold his breath for one hundred and sixty

seconds and when he keeps on practicing he can hold it for two

minutes. This is the amount of time he needs to go through the tunnel.

when he finds out that he is going home in a couple of days he decides

to do it the day before he goes home.

The time comes for him to do the challenge he goes to the bay and

dives in. when he is going to the tunnel lots of thoughts are going

through his head whether he is going to die or not and whether he will

see his mother again. Once he gets to the tunnel he starts to go

through the tunnel it gets thinner and thinner, and he starts to

wonder if he will make it. Jerry makes it through and he is so

delighted because he thinks he is mature now, but really he is just

the same person as before the challenge.