Kimball Khetani

May 28, 2019

Fitz English 8

Literary Analysis Paragraph

How Determination Played A Huge Role In Through The Tunnel

Some people succeed because they are destined but most because they are determined

- Unknown

Every boy has determination but in the book Through The Tunnel, by Doris Lessing, the boy Jerry has lot of determination to find and swim through the tunnel. Jerry sees the older boys going through the tunnel and he has a lot of determination to do it himself. “Soon the biggest of the boys poised himself, shot down into the water, and did not come up. The others stood about, watching. Jerry, after waiting for the sleek brown head to appear, let out a yell of warning; they looked at him idly and turned their eyes back toward the water. After a long time, the boy came up on the other side of a big dark rock, letting the air out of his lungs in a sputtering gasp and a shout of triumph.” I keeps looking to try and find it but can seem to only see a rock. I goes a little deeper and finally sees it. I begins practicing holding his breath for a long time to go through the tunnel. 

Jerry was so determined to go through the tunnel that he practiced so much. He worked very hard to hold his breath. He did as much as he could at times. Some days, he even went back to the villa with a bloody nose and he was feeling dizzy. His mom wanted to let him go and do his own things to make him feel like he wasn’t trapped but when she saw his nose bleeding, she got worried and made him stay with her for a day. “Have a nice morning? she asked, laying her hand on his warm brown shoulder. Oh, yes, thank you, he said. You look a bit pale. And then, sharp and anxious, How did you bang your head? She said. Oh, just banged it, he told her.”

Again his nose bled at night, and his mother insisted on his coming with her the next day. It was a torment to him to waste a day of his careful self-training, but he stayed with her on that other beach, which now seemed a place for small children, a place where his mother might lie safe in the sun. It was not his beach.

His determination was very important in getting to his goal; he didn't have any determination then he would have a hard time getting to his goal; “He was without light, and the water seemed to press upon him with the weight of rock. Seventy-one, seventy-two. There was no strain on his lungs. He felt like an inflated balloon, his lungs were so light and easy, but his head was pulsing.” Determination is what kept him going and to keep trying. 

His determination got him to his goal and that experience probably taught him that if you work towards something, you can achieve it.