Fear and it’s Influence on Defining Moments
Coming face-to-face with your fears can be intimidating, but at that crucial moment, what would you reveal about your real character? Crises often pose life-defining questions, and the answers to them divulge the truest intentions and personalities. Conducting oneself at the peak of pressure is perhaps one of the most complex tasks to manage, yet at some point in everybody’s life, they all wind up doing so. It takes only a moment to make the one decision which changes everything. Sarah Ellis’ “The Tunnel” conveys how the protagonist, Ken, overcomes the greatest obstacles in his life in a split-second, to follow his moralistic ideals of right and wrong. This notion is explored through pre-existing …show more content…
As Ken remembers his “feet braced against the pipe” he recounts the traumatic experience he lived through as a child, and the raw fear which accompanied it. Therefore, further on in the story, when Ken is nervous to revisit the tunnel, the reader is able to pinpoint the exact reason why, and the story continues to make sense. Without the memory of that moment, the tunnel would hold no significance and would not prove to be additional underlying support for the actions and intentions of the protagonist. Likewise, the “high snatch of song” Ken hears when he visited the culvert comes back to play an essential role in this compelling short story afterwards. Incorporating this flashback leads to the realization that the entity in the tunnel had come for both him and Ib, and that perhaps the terror he had experienced was not just a result of the claustrophobia. These simple “two notes” play a vastly important part in the reaction to hearing them and having to decide how he would let that effect his actions when he was no longer a kid. Finally, as dirt was “pressing heavy against (his) chest against (his) eyelids” Ken’s fear is laid bare for all to see. The audience begins to truly understand just how debilitating his angst is, and the lengths to which he would normally go to in order to avoid living the same ordeal twice. Since he “suffer(s) from claustrophobia” when Ib wants to walk through the tunnel, one would expect him to deny her request and turn back. Contrarily, his mature and courageous side compels him to continue onwards and provide Ib something to ostensibly make her joyous. He reacts to said raging internal conflict in spite of prior notions, and appeals to the mature and moralistic decision in a point of crisis. By providing flashbacks throughout
Coming face-to-face with your fears can be intimidating, but at that crucial moment, what would you reveal about your real character? Crises often pose life-defining questions, and the answers to them divulge the truest intentions and personalities. Conducting oneself at the peak of pressure is perhaps one of the most complex tasks to manage, yet at some point in everybody’s life, they all wind up doing so. It takes only a moment to make the one decision which changes everything. Sarah Ellis’ “The Tunnel” conveys how the protagonist, Ken, overcomes the greatest obstacles in his life in a split-second, to follow his moralistic ideals of right and wrong. This notion is explored through pre-existing …show more content…
As Ken remembers his “feet braced against the pipe” he recounts the traumatic experience he lived through as a child, and the raw fear which accompanied it. Therefore, further on in the story, when Ken is nervous to revisit the tunnel, the reader is able to pinpoint the exact reason why, and the story continues to make sense. Without the memory of that moment, the tunnel would hold no significance and would not prove to be additional underlying support for the actions and intentions of the protagonist. Likewise, the “high snatch of song” Ken hears when he visited the culvert comes back to play an essential role in this compelling short story afterwards. Incorporating this flashback leads to the realization that the entity in the tunnel had come for both him and Ib, and that perhaps the terror he had experienced was not just a result of the claustrophobia. These simple “two notes” play a vastly important part in the reaction to hearing them and having to decide how he would let that effect his actions when he was no longer a kid. Finally, as dirt was “pressing heavy against (his) chest against (his) eyelids” Ken’s fear is laid bare for all to see. The audience begins to truly understand just how debilitating his angst is, and the lengths to which he would normally go to in order to avoid living the same ordeal twice. Since he “suffer(s) from claustrophobia” when Ib wants to walk through the tunnel, one would expect him to deny her request and turn back. Contrarily, his mature and courageous side compels him to continue onwards and provide Ib something to ostensibly make her joyous. He reacts to said raging internal conflict in spite of prior notions, and appeals to the mature and moralistic decision in a point of crisis. By providing flashbacks throughout