Compare and Contast Essay: Sixteen And Through The Tunnel

In the stories sixteen and through the tunnel there is a clear pattern of character development. Both main characters learn and grow through the stories and are made better in the end. They both learn a lesson about social importance as well. They both learned different things and at the same time, their lessons were similar.  

In sixteen the main character is a sixteen-year-old girl who goes to a skating rink and meets a cute boy. They skate together and eventually; the boy walks home with her and promises to call her. She is at first extremely excited and waits for his call. After some time, she realizes that he never really was going to call her and never will. This makes her sad. In this story, the main character learns that sometimes we know something, but our heart tries to tell us something different. The main character learns that even if it is hard, she needs to take care of herself and not worry about what the boy thinks about her or what he does. 

In through the tunnel, the main character is a young boy on vacation with his mother. He meets some native boys while at the beach and they dive under the water and through a tunnel. He spends a larger portion of his vacation trying to be able to swim through a tunnel. He is finally able to, but it is extremely dangerous. He gets a nosebleed and thinks his eyes have burst. In the end he is proud of his accomplishment but realizes that risking his life was not worth the small bit of validation he felt afterward. 

In both stories, the main character learns a lesson about the importance of being happy with yourself despite what other people may be thinking about them. One difference between the stories is that the girl learns through social rejection and the boy learns through social success. At the end of the story, the girl is trying to work on being happy without the boy at the rink. The boy from through the tunnel learns how scary and risky it can be to try to fit in and be like others and sometimes, it is not worth it. 

These stories can teach us that societal structures can be dangerous to our physical and mental wellbeing. This can take form in the real world in many ways. One of these ways is disordered eating. There are many girls in the real world who turn to anorexia type eating habits to try to achieve a “perfect” body. They do this for themselves sometimes, but they also do it for their boyfriends and to look like celebrities. Sometimes it can take a heartbreaking experience to stop, and other times it takes an entire near-death experience.  

Both characters have a challenging thing happen to them and need to realize that a lot of their issue in the first place was peer pressure. The girl needs to know that the boy at the rink made that decision on his own and that it had nothing to do with her. She needs to remember this to avoid a depressive or even body dysmorphic disorder. This was not her fault, and she should just move on the best she can and try to forget about It.  

At the end of the story the boy in through the tunnel realizes that it is not worth risking your life or putting yourself in a dangerous situation just to fit in with the people around you. If people are pressuring you to do something that makes you uncomfortable or hurts you physically or emotionally, you do not need to be around those people if they are making a negative impact on your health.