What were the ethical issues that influenced the problem of the story "Through the Tunnel?"

I assume you are referring to this excellent short story
by Doris Lessing, which deals with the coming of age initiation that a young boy
arranges for himself. I guess one of the key ethical issues that this short story raises
is the role of initiation rites and their importance of marking the movement of a child
to an adult. One of the problems in the West, some critics argue, is that we do not have
any initiation rites in the same way as other cultures and thus we fail to mark the
movement from child to adult which results in a confusion of identity and role within
our culture for teenagers.

Consider the Hopi, who are
American Indians from Arizona. In a traditional Hopi initiation, boys must sit almost
motionless for four days with their knees touching their chins. When they emerge from
this foetal position, they are reborn as men. Jerry, in this story, chooses his own
initiation ritual to indicate his passing from childhood to adulthood, and thus Lessing
raises this issues through her story.