Maturing And Adolescence In Through The Tunnel By Doris Lessing

Lynn Hall once said “We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.” This is exactly what the author, Doris Lessing, expresses in her short story “Through the Tunnel.” Lessing dives into an 11 year old boy’s life and the challenges he faces as he matures from a naive child to an adult like kid. The boy, Jerry, is on a vacation with his widow mother and sees these older brown boys playing in the water, jumping off cliffs, and going through an underwater tunnel. As he sees them playing he realizes he wants to be just like them, more importantly wants to be accepted by them. In her short story “Through the Tunnel”, Doris Lessing explores the difficulties of maturing and adolescence through using symbolism and metaphors. As the author writes her short story she places a lot of symbolism behind her writing to show a deeper meaning in the story. For example as a tunnels duty is to connect one place to another, the symbolism behind the tunnel in the story is to take Jerry from point A being a naive and young child to point B becoming a more mature and adultlike kid. In the beginning of the story the boy’s mother's arm was …show more content…
As Jerry jumps into the water he faces his fears of both jumping and meeting the “angry” rocks. When he goes through the tunnel, he realizes how difficult it can be yet he still strives make himself better and to achieve his set goal. Once he finally goes through the tunnel and gets back to the villa he blurts out to his mother “ I can stay underwater for two minutes…” showing a sense of pride and accomplishment. This shows us that Jerry in fact did not change, but he learned more about himself, his abilities and strength which gave him a more matured look. The process of maturing is known to be difficult but it a journey all of us will one day