Determination is what drives you

“Motivation gets you going determination keeps you going.”

     Determination is what drives people to try something or do something different, in the book “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing this proves to be true. As a young kid you always look up to the older kids and always want to do what their doing. Jerry so desperately wanted to swim through a system of boy all while under water so he could do what everyone else was doing. He was determined to practice holding his breath everyday so he could finally hold his breath for just about two minutes while under water. “In another four days, his mother said casually one morning, they must go home. On the day before they left, he would do it. He would do it if it killed him.” 

     “Through The Tunnel” tells the story of a young boy named Jerry who is on a trip over the summer with his mom. Everyday they went to the same part of the beach and did the same thing, one day Jerry wanted to swim out to some rocks and he did and that’s where he found a few older boys jumping off a rock and into the water and he did the same, eventually one of the boys jumped and didn’t come out, Jerry started worrying what had happened to him then almost two minutes later up popped the boy next to a rock, “At fifty, he was terrified. They must all be drowning beneath him, in the watery caves of the rock!” He later found out that he had swam through a series of pipes underwater. Jerry really wanted to do this just like the rest of the boys but he was to scared to. Eventually he gained up enough power and really practiced holding his breath for longer “That night, his nose bled badly. For hours he had been under water, learning to hold his breath, and now he felt weak and dizzy.” Eventually he was able to swim through the pipes successfully. 

“That day and the next, Jerry exercised his lungs as if everything, the whole of his life, all that he         could become, depended upon it. 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 training, but he stayed with her on that other beach.”

Through The Tunnel

     He was determined to swim through the tunnel; he was determined to keep practicing; he was determined to reach his goal and he did. “A hundred, a hundred and one… The water paled. Victory filled him. His lungs were beginning to hurt. A few more strokes and he would be out.” Determination is so important in this book and in real life because it’s what drives you to try new things even if you may not get them perfectly the first you’ll be determined to try again like Jerry kept trying and trying to be able to hold his breath for long enough and he eventually was able to. 

     Determination is what drives you to try new things.