"Through the Tunnel" is a short story by British-Zimbabwean writer Doris Lessing. Originally published in The New Yorker magazine in August of 1955, it would be republished two years later in a highly-regarded collection of Lessing's short fiction titled The Habit of Loving. The story is an example of coming-of-age fiction in which a young boy begins to make the transition into adulthood. In the story, an English boy named Jerry is on vacation with his widowed mother in a foreign country. When he notices a group of older boys diving off rocks and swimming through tunnels beneath the water, he becomes determined to do the same despite the dangers and risks.
Lessing moved to London in 1949, but had previously lived in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her parents. Readers might observe this biographical influence at work in the story, in which the older boys Jerry encounters are "burned smooth dark brown and speaking a language he did not understand" (2). Having grown up amidst extreme racial segregation, Lessing become a fierce opponent of apartheid and was eventually banned from South Africa and Rhodesia in 1956. "Through the Tunnel" explores the concept of racial tension and imposed segregation through the interaction between Jerry and the group of older boys. As Jerry makes the transition from childhood to young adulthood, one of the elements that aids in dismantling his childhood innocence is solitude; having been eager to play with the older boys, Jerry eventually comes to understand that he is different from them and must continue swimming alone.
