Structure
The plot of the short story “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing follows Jerry, an 11-year-old boy, through a single event of his life: training to swim through an underwater hole in a rock. The plot is focused on two main conflicts: overcoming one’s limitations, and humans versus nature. In the story, Jerry tries to overcome his weakness and fears to pass the challenge of going through an underwater tu…
...
...
Beginning
The short story begins with a brief exposition through which we find out where the events are set and meet the characters: “Going to the shore on the first morning of the holiday, the young English boy stopped at a turning of the path and looked down at a wild and rocky bay…” (ll. 1-2); “He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion.” (ll. 30-31)
We find out that the main character is an 11-year-old boy, on a beach holiday in a foreign country with his widowed mother.
The two main conflic…
...
Middle
The middle of the short story includes the rising action, which develops the two conflicts up until the climactic moment.
As Jerry goes to the rocky bay alone, and he swims out to a point where he can see his mother, which suggests Jerry still takes comfort in her presence and protection: “…he floated on the buoyant surface and looked for his mother. There she was, a speck of yellow under an umbrella…” (ll. 46-48)
Tension increases when he sees a group of local older boys and wants to join them, but he feels embarrassed because he cannot speak their language: “…speaking a language he did not understand. To be with them, of them, was a craving that filled his whole body. He swam a little closer…” (ll. 54-56)
Tension increases again as Jerry sees the boys going through an underwater tunnel, and he does not know how to find the tunnel and join them: “…he understood that they had swum through so…
...
Ending
The falling action shows Jerry after coming back to surface, blood coming from his nose and struggling to breath: “He tore off his goggles and a gout of blood went into the sea. His nose was bleeding, and the blood had filled the goggles.” (ll. 269-271)
He returns home and lies on the bed: “He flung himself on his bed and slept, waking at the sound of feet on the path outside.” (ll. 278-279)
The resolution shows Jerry talking to his …
