The short story that I recently read was called "Through The Tunnel" written by Doris Lessing. This successful, symbolic and suspenseful tale was written in the late 1950s. The genre of the story is growing up and independence. This is the first of Lessing's work I have read.
The story is of an 11 year old boy and his mother on a beach holiday in France. Everyday the boy is dragged to the "safe" beach by his mother but he longs to go down to the "wild bay" where there are rocks and pools to play in. When he finally finds the courage to tell his mum he wants to go on his own to the wild bay, his mum allows him after a lot of consideration. Jerry finds some locals to play with, but after a while they disappear underwater and reappear a couple of minutes later beyond the rocks in the sea. Jerry could not work out where they had gone through the rocks but the next day when he came back with goggles he found the hole. He set himself a challenge to complete by the end of his holiday - to make it through the tunnel. He approaches the task in a very mature way, realising he must fist practice to hold his breath. Over the next few days Jerry practises going to the bottom of the pool using a heavy rock to weigh him down, and holding his breath. Each time he improves his time slightly, but he pushes himself so hard that every night he has bad nosebleeds. Despite causing himself pain, Jerry persists and finally achieves the time required to make it through the tunnel. At the end of the week when he feels he is prepared to finally undertake the challenge, Jerry entered the tunnel. With a great struggle, coming close to drowning, Jerry made it through the tunnel and got to the sea's surface grasping for a breath. He had set himself a challenge, and achieved it - moving up a step in the staircase of adolescence. .
I think the most important aspect that contributes to the success of the story is Lessing's interesting style of writing.
