'Through the Tunnel' Summary

The story of “Through the Tunnel” begins with an eleven-year-old boy named Jerry and his widowed mother on a vacation to a coastal town in an unidentified foreign country. Both of them have come from their native England and seem to have visited the area before, as they already have a routine in place of going to a certain popular beach. 

On the way down to the beach, she offers him the chance to explore other parts of the beach on his own. On the first day, Jerry refuses, spending his day with his mother. On the second day, however, he decides to explore the more isolated part of the coast which looks wild and rocky. Out of curiosity, he traverses to the bottom of a cliff, where he swims out in the water to a bank of rocks, which gives him a better view of the coast. Jerry drifts far enough out that he can see his mother in the distance, just a small dot on the crowded beach. 

On his way back to the beach, Jerry sees a group of local boys, who are swimming, diving, and playing in the water. They waved at him and motioned for him to join them, so he does. Once the boys realize that Jerry is foreign and cannot speak their native language, they pay little attention to him. This upsets him, and he begins to develop a strong desire to seek their approval and become part of their group. Along with the boys' Jerry dives off of a high cliff into the water. The biggest boy among the group dives into the water however doesn’t come up for several minutes. Jerry is shocked and yells out to the others, but they don’t seem to be concerned about the other boy’s disappearance. Jerry begins to panic. When the boy eventually appears in the water on the other side of a large rock, the rest of the group follows suit and dives off the rock. Jerry goes in after them to check out what is there but can only see the surface of the rock. As Jerry tries to swim through it, he becomes afraid and decides to go back. When the other boys, too, suddenly reappear on the other side of the rock, Jerry realizes that they must have passed through an opening in the rocks some sort of underwater tunnel.

As the boys decide to dive again, Jerry is desperate for their approval and wants to impress them. He tries speaking to them in broken French, but they are unimpressed and didn’t give him much attention. One by one, the boys dive into the water. Jerry counts off the minutes and is shocked at the length of time the boys can stay underwater. When he gets to one hundred and sixty, the boys reappear on the other side of the rock again and go back to the shore, ignoring him all the while. After Jerry returns to the diving rock, the boys leave to another area on the shore, and he cries to himself.

Throughout the rest of the day, Jerry spends all his time thinking about how he can get through the tunnel. He also asks his mother to buy him a pair of goggles among other swimming gear. In the following days, he practices holding his breath, both underwater and on land, and learns how to use a boulder to help sink himself to get through the opening of the tunnel. In his training process, Jerry suffers severe nose bleeds and experiences extreme nausea, which makes him worried that the same will happen to him while making his way through the long underwater tunnel and that he would get trapped and die there. He also convinces himself that it would be better to try the dive next summer when he will be older and much stronger. But he also feels that he does not do it now, chances are he never will. He is conflicted between his fear of the tunnel and that he will never follow through without entering it.

When his mother says they will be going back home in four days, Jerry decides that it is his last opportunity to make his passage and decides to make an attempt two days before they leave. When the day comes, Jerry enters the tunnel and employs all the tricks that he has been practicing. He knows that he has no choice but to go forward. Inside the tunnel, his lungs start to ache, his eyes burn, and he gets dizzy. However, eventually, he successfully does make it through to the other side and appears above the surface of the water. Though, he is desperate for air and bleeding from a gash on his head, but feels extremely elated with the accomplishment of his goal. While going back home, he sees the same group of local boys but feels no desire to win their approval any longer. He falls fast asleep when he gets home, and awakes when his mother returns. She asks him about the wound on his head, but he does not feel the need to tell her of his courageous feat—only that he can now hold his breath for over two minutes underwater as well. She tells him not to overdo it, but the boy has no desire to return to the rocky bay again.

One might say the story of through the tunnel was a journey of coming of age tale in which the protagonist, in the end, has acquired confidence and optimism for the future. The theme of this story is individualism and developing independence. Jerry takes a journey through the tunnel, entering reliant and feeble, but when he makes it through the tunnel, he is free. He gains maturity early as he no longer felt the need to impress anyone or seek validation from others. The story is about a personal journey and struggles to find himself and set himself apart.