Through The Tunnel Rite Of Passage

In the two short stories, “Brothers are the Same”, illustrated by Beryl Markham, and “Through the Tunnel”, written by Doris Lessing, the two stories both deal with vastly different cultures, but both stories are about characters that both undergo rites of passage on their way to adulthood. A rite of passage is an event marking an important stage in somebody’s life. In these two short stories the main character in each of the stories undergoes a rite of passage which marks their adulthood. While the two qualities needed to accomplish the task, and how each of their accomplishments are achieved they are more different than they are alike. To start it off, in the short story, “Brothers are the Same”, two brothers, Temas and Medoto, of the same tribe in Africa called the Masai, are trying to prove each other manhood. The two boys trying to prove manhood will also end up proving themselves to a girl named Kileghen. In the young men's tribe, showing their manhood is by facing a lion “ ...he must meet in combat the only word of the enemy his people recognize-the destroyer of their cattle, the marauding master of the plains-the lion” (Markham 361). One of the boys, Medoto, has already proven his manhood, Temas has yet too.

In “Brothers are the Same”, Temas is passing a rite of passage because it is a known thing to do in his village, yet in “Through the Tunnel” Jerry is going through a rite of passage that is not expected of him. Jerry is trying to accomplish going through a tunnel that is on seafloor. There was no plan of Jerry to do this until he saw older boys doing the same thing. Jerry is trying to prove himself old and responsible to these men by going through the tunnel. In order to manage this, Jerry prepares by training himself to hold his breathe for a long time and scouting out where he is going to go through the