Similarities Between To Kill A Mockingbird And Through The Tunnel

Maturation Through Ordeal As one grows up they undergo incredible change in personality, morality and worldview. These changes can occur completely organically, or they can be triggered by an outside catalyst. It is through these alterations that greater understanding of the world is acquired. “Through the Tunnel” examines a child’s development into adolescence through the use of a central metaphor. Jerry, the protagonist and aforementioned child, longs to be accepted by older boys whom he sees going through an underwater tunnel. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, delves the depths of pre-teenhood through more direct means, following a brother and sister through a moral crisis that shocks their entire town. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and

The story takes place during an annual family vacation to an unspecified country. Jerry looks up to some older boys he sees dive and swim through an underwater tunnel, and he longs to be accepted by them. He sees them as being matured and adult: “They were big boys-men to Jerry” (Lessing 3). In order to become a man of the same stature as the boys, Jerry becomes determined to find his way through the tunnel. The tunnel is used throughout the story as a metaphor for the challenges that shape one into a matured young adult. By striving to meet the challenge of making it through the tunnel, Jerry learns the importance of focus and patience. “A curious, most unchildlike persistence, a controlled impatience, made him wait” (Lessing 7). As he embarks through the tunnel he finds that it’s much more difficult than he expected. He is scarred by the jagged top of the tunnel which he is continually propelled toward by upward currents. When he finally meets the challenge he finds he no longer feels the need to be accepted and validated by the older boys, seen here “He could see the local boys diving and playing half a mile away. He did not want them. He wanted only to go home to his mother” (Lessing 9). This shows that Jerry’s hunger for independence and adulthood had been