76 Doris Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel”
In This Chapter
Author Background
Doris Lessing (1919-2013) was born in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iraq), where her father worked as a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia. In 1925, the family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to take up maize farming. Lessing was educated first at a convent school then at the Dominican Convent High School, an all-girls high school in Salisbury, from which she dropped out at the age of thirteen. From that point on, she became an autodidact, reading books ordered from London, by authors such as Dickens, D. H. Lawrence, and Woolf. She was also shaped by her mother’s constant pressure for British propriety and conventionality and her father’s bitter accounts of WWI.
Writing Career
At the age of fifteen, Lessing left home to work as a nursemaid and started writing professionally. After moving to Salisbury, she worked as a telephone operator and married Frank Wisdom; they had two children. Oppressed by the institution of marriage, into which she felt that women sank and disappeared, Lessing left her family but continued to live in Salisbury. Her interest in politics drew her to Communism and Socialism. She joined the Left Book Club and married one of its members, Gottfried Lessing; the two had a son. In 1949, she left this marriage and moved to London, taking her youngest son Peter with her.
There, she pursued her writing and published her novel The Grass is Singing (1950), an account of a white couple in southern Africa who struggle at farming, their black servant Moses, and the overt, often cruel racism of the whites against the blacks. The physical and mental deterioration of the wife, Mary Turner, particularly highlights the artificiality and hypocrisy of the “colour bar.” Lessing continued to use her experiences in and views of Africa, particularly her opposition to apartheid, as material for her writing, through which she developed her views on politics, cultural clashes, and racial and gender inequalities. The act of writing allowed her to distance herself from cultural and social pressures that coercively shape the individual and to explore identity and the individual’s place in society.
In a series of psychological novels, The Children of Violence (1952-1969), she followed the developing consciousness of Martha Quest and the dystopian future of England. Her book The Golden Notebook (1962) manifested the multiple and multivalent selves of a single woman resisting the pressures and repressions of her society with the force and freedom of a man. The book uses a postmodern, a chronological structure that intersects “realistic” narrative with journal entries recording external and internal events. Although playful and even absurdist, the book considers themes of continuing relevance, including societal fragmentation, the threat of nuclear destruction, and women’s struggle for physical, emotional, and mental integrity in a society that often denies them any such integrity at all, let alone autonomy.
“Through the Tunnel”
“Through the Tunnel” was first published in 1955 and has since become one of Lessing’s most anthologized and studied works. The story explores themes of adolescence, personal growth, and the quest for independence. Set in an unnamed seaside location, “Through the Tunnel” follows a young boy named Jerry who is on vacation with his mother. Jerry is portrayed as an independent and determined child who desires to prove his bravery and maturity. He becomes fascinated by a group of older boys who can swim through an underwater tunnel, a feat he aspires to accomplish himself. The story delves into the challenges and risks Jerry faces as he pushes himself to reach his goal. Jerry’s physical and psychological journey reflects his desire for self-discovery and the pursuit of personal achievement. It explores the themes of perseverance, the search for identity, and the transition from childhood to adolescence.
“Through the Tunnel” is known for its vivid and descriptive language, as well as its exploration of the internal and external conflicts faced by its young protagonist. The story highlights the tensions between independence and parental protection, the fear of failure, and the drive for personal accomplishment. “Through the Tunnel” exemplifies Lessing’s ability to delve into the inner world of her characters and capture the nuances of their emotional experiences.
Lessing continued to write until the end of her life, employing various genres, including science fiction and opera, as well as diverse personas (for instance, writing under the pseudonym of Jane Somers). In 2007, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Read Doris Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel.” You can find the short story here:
http://www.shortstoryproject.com/through-the-tunnel/
1. What is this story’s point-of-view? What is the effect of this point-of-view on your understanding of the characters and action?
2. How does Jerry’s character develop throughout the story? What significant changes occur in his personality or outlook?
3. What does the tunnel represent in the story? How does it symbolize Jerry’s journey and his transition from childhood to adolescence?
4. How do the wild bay and the safe beach serve as symbols of Jerry’s internal conflict and the different stages of his development?
5. How does the structure of the story, with its focus on Jerry’s goal and the build-up to his final swim through the tunnel, create tension and maintain the reader’s interest?
6. How does Jerry’s relationship with his mother evolve throughout the story? What does this evolution signify about his growing independence?
7. How did you interpret the climax of the story when Jerry finally swims through the tunnel? What emotions did it evoke, and why?
8. Can you identify any parallels between Jerry and other literary characters who undertake significant journeys or face considerable obstacles to achieve personal growth?
Sources
Lessing, Doris. “Through the Tunnel.” To Room Nineteen. Flamingo, 1954.
Lessing, Doris. “Through the Tunnel.” The Short Story Project. https://shortstoryproject.com/stories/through-the-tunnel/
Robinson, Bonnie J. British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond. University of North Georgia Press, 2018. https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/16/, CCA-SA 4.0
Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. The term, which comes from the Afrikaans word apartheid meaning "apartness", was used by the white-ruled country's Nationalist Party to describe its policies.
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often includes themes of both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth.
A protagonist is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles.
Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas, or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"; on maps, blue lines often represent rivers; and a red rose often symbolizes love and compassion.
The climax of a text is the most intense, exciting, or important point.
