Through the Tunnel Themes

“Through the Tunnel” is the story of Jerry, a young boy who is training to make a physical passage through an underwater tunnel, but it is also a story about a boy preparing (unbeknown to him) to make the passage from childhood into young adulthood. As the story opens, in the time before Jerry has attempted to swim beneath the rock and through the tunnel, he is still a boy. By the time…

From the story’s first sentence, when Jerry’s attention is split between going to the crowded beach with his mother or to the rocky bay by himself, Lessing creates a sharp contrast between solitude and community. Throughout the story, Jerry seems to be privately weighing the burdens and benefits of being surrounded by others in a community against the difficulties—and, he discovers, the joys—of being alone.

Although Jerry decides to explore the isolated strip of…