Holes is a book about a boy named Stanley Yelnats who is convicted of stealing a famous basketball player’s shoes. His punishment for stealing a basketball player’s shoes is going to detention camp. Stanley believes that this all happened because of an ancient family curse or fate. This is true because both bad luck and fate led to detention camp where he turned his bad luck around once and for all.
In the book Holes Stanley Yelnats gets sent to a detention camp because of bad luck. His bad luck was that he was standing under a bridge when a stolen pair of a famous basketball player’s shoes got dropped on his head. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time because of an ancient family curse. The curse put on his family was set because of Stanley’s pig stealing great-great grandfather who disrespected one of the ancestors of Zero, the boy who committed the crime that Stanley was convicted of. Zero, who was also in the camp, told Stanley that his ancestor had told Stanley’s great-great grandfather how to get rid of the family curse but that he never got rid of it. This is the first time that Stanley realized that the curse could be broken. This curse is taken away at the end of the book. Stanley’s fate and bad luck were changed because he did something that his great-great grandfather was supposed to do.
While at detention camp, Stanley is forced dig a hole at extremely specific regulations. Stanley’s holes get dug but not as fast as he’d like them to. Stanley doesn’t know this but the holes are a big part of his fate. The warden says that they dig these holes because it builds character, but the real reason is hidden. The real reason for the digging of the holes is so that the warden can find a legendary treasure. Stanley’s “hole digging fate” was all changed when he found out that Kate Barlow had buried treasure there.
Stanley’s whole family’s luck was horrible all throughout life because of something his pig stealing great-great grandfather did. This would be a nasty fate to have because everything you ever did would turn out badly because of someone else’s actions.
Together they worked until the two holes were one and the same. When the depression was the size of a small dishpan, Nel’s twig broke. With a gesture of disgust she threw the pieces into the hole they had made. Sula threw hers in too. Nel saw a bottle cap and tossed it in as well. Each then looked around for more debris to throw into the hole: paper, bits of glass, butts of cigarettes, until all the small defiling things they could find were collected there. Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire grave with uprooted grass. Neither one had spoken a word. (Morrison 58-59)
Stanley is Eugene's 18-year-old, older brother. Stanley can be described as a person who stands up for his principles. Eugene is constantly looking to him for advice with his pubescent "problems". Stanley had to work young to support the family. We later see him losing his paycheck from gambling and almost joining the army.
Stanley Yelnats, a boy who has bad luck due to a curse placed on his great- great-grandfather, is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention camp, for a crime he did not commit. Stanley and the other boys at the camp are forced to dig large holes in the dirt every day. Stanley eventually realizes that they are digging these holes because the Warden is searching for something. As Stanley continues to dig holes and meet the other boys at the camp, the narrator intertwines three separate stories to reveal why Stanley's family has a curse and what the Warden is looking for.
“hole” that the narrator refers to is the basement home that he discovers later in the novel.
As a school teacher and with limited income from teaching and a family to take care, the narrator is still stuck with housing project in Harlem, he cannot make a bail or hire the best lawyer to defend his brother. The distress from losing his baby daughter; the feeling of guilt, desperation and failure to care and protect his younger brother from the deadly touch of drugs weight down the narrator’s life. Damaged while getting out of Harlem’s trap, and like his descended father, the narrator sees the darkness in every corner of
Another plot in the movie is that the Yelnats family line is cursed from Stanley’s great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, for not following through with his promise to help a shaman woman, Madam Zeroni. The shaman is Zero’s ancestor. The curse caused the family to be very unlucky. While at the camp, Zero runs away when the make shift “therapist”, Mr. Pendanski, shames him in front of the group of boys. In return, Zero knocks him
Willie's deviant life started not on the day he was born, but since the beginning of his family's existence. Butterfield give extensive information on how the Boskets grew and the negative social influences that they faced throughout their history. The negative influences that each generation of Boskets faced allowed for the passing down of mistrust and a selfish lifestyle that put themselves first above their family members. As Willie's case exemplifies it is not only Willie's family that socialized him to become deviant but rather the environment in which he was raised. Willie's whole life he was told he was a bad kid, this stigma led him to a life of crime and ultimately is life in prison.
Stanley repeatedly gets what he wants by using any means possible. In addition, the person whoever threatens the existence of his poker game receives a beating, in this case his wife. This scene demonstrates Stanley’s viscous animal-like traits with such violence. If what happened here was repeated in today’s society, he would find himself in a jail cell with a pending divorce.
Many stereotypes are associated with Appalachian background, which Townsend and Pollock use to their advantage in order for their characters’ interactions to have this heavy impact on their on-going development. Every child wants to make their parents proud either by becoming successful, pursuing their parent’s dream that he or she never got to fulfill, or committing an act, right or wrong, that their parent demands they do. In Saint Monkey, Audrey and Caroline are heavily influenced by their fathers’ decisions and the consequences that followed, which is also in relation with Bobby and his father in “Real Life.” An interview editor for The Rumpus, Ben Pfeiffer, concludes from an interview with Townsend a key reason to the suffering of their friendship, “Audrey Martin and Caroline “Pookie” Wallace, misfit childhood friends, start to drift apart along different life paths” (Pfeiffer TheRumpus.net). Townsend writes, “…we all got to follow our daddies’ dreams” (Townsend 192). Audrey writes this to Caroline; moving away and pursuing her daddy’s dream, while Caroline is forced to stay in Mt. Sterling in order to take of her sister as a result of her daddy killing her mother; consequence. In “Real Life,” Pollock creates a similar scenario with Bobby in relation to his father. Bobby is influenced to commit an act of violence by his father’s command: “You back down, I’ll blister your ass” (Pollock 95). Bobby’s only two options are: beat the kid up or get beaten up. No child wants to be abused so the logical thing to choose is to retaliate: consequence. All three characters’ developments’ are created as a result of their actions: Audrey growing out of
However, there are also many instances where Stanley, a common working-class man, reveals his desire to be powerful and manly in his relationship with Stella, a woman who is of high class. Stanley is a man from a poor background and is married to a woman with a rich family history. Logically, Stanley may feel intimidated by Stella’s upbringing and feels that it is crucial to oppress her; it is hinted many times throughout the play as Stanley clearly demonstrates he is the one that holds the power by the way he treats Stella. Right from the start of the play, with Stanley’s introduction, he comes “around the corner… [with] a red-stained package from a butcher’s” (4), much like how an animal would bring its kill back home. With this, it is an analogy to a leader, Stanley, of a pack that brings back the food for the others to eat. The reliance of Stanley to bring back home the food broadcasts his will as the almighty alpha male that holds more importance than Stella. Furthermore, Stanley “heaves the meat at her (Stella),” (4) treating her as like a servant and also making a sexual innuendo. This action is one of disrespect and lets Stella know that she is under Stanley. This is an example of Stanley seeing Stella as a slave, a sexual object, under his control. Control is a large factor to Stanley as a husband and as a person. This is apparent when Stella explains that “Stanley doesn’t
the reader a picture of a man who is not only digging, but doing it
Stanley’s demanding that Mitch return to the poker game when he is first speaking to Blanche could suggest that Stanley doesn’t want the two to interact, and would perhaps go to any lengths to sabotage them. Additionally, Stanley also begins to pry into Blanche’s past, specifically when he brings up a man named Shaw who claims he met Blanche “…at a hotel called the Flamingo” (Williams 89). Though this speculation is denied by Blanche, a further investigation into her past could result in the discovery of incriminating information, thus resulting in sabotage from Stanley.
Scout Finch, the youngest child of Atticus Finch, narrates the story. It is summer and her cousin Dill and brother Jem are her companions and playmates. They play all summer long until Dill has to go back home to Maridian and Scout and her brother start school. The Atticus’ maid, a black woman by the name of Calpurnia, is like a mother to the children. While playing, Scout and Jem discover small trinkets in a knothole in an old oak tree on the Radley property. Summer rolls around again and Dill comes back to visit. A sence of discrimination develops towards the Radley’s because of their race. Scout forms a friendship with her neighbor Miss Maudie, whose house is later burnt down. She tells Scout to respect Boo Radley and treat him like a person. Treasures keep appearing in the knothole until it is filled with cement to prevent decay. As winter comes it snows for the first time in a century. Boo gives scout a blanket and she finally understands her father’s and Miss Maudie’s point of view and treats him respectfully. Scout and Jem receive air guns for Christmas, and promise Atticus never to shoot a mockingbird, for they are peaceful and don’t deserve to die in that manner. Atticus then takes a case defending a black man accused of rape. He knows that such a case will bring trouble for his family but he takes it anyways. This is the sense of courage he tries to instill in his son Jem.
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney is the first poem in the first full volume of Heaney’s poems, “Death of a Naturalist”. “Death of a Naturalist” is about the transition into adulthood and the loss of innocence. The poem shows how Heaney looked up to his father and grandfather, especially their hard work. Even though Heaney did not follow in their footsteps and become a farm laborer, he respects the work they do, especially their skill at digging.
Young boys grow up to be the men, as friends and family are heavily influencing them. The book Holes written by Louis Sachar and is a story of a young man who has gotten into some trouble, who learns about bullying and being self-reliant. The main character Stanley Yelnats, finds himself at a juvenile detention center due to the family “curse.” Camp Green Lake is the center where Stanley is attending. The land that Camp Green Lake currently resides is on a dried up lake. At one point in time, it was once a huge lake, in the middle of a thriving city, which now is a washed up desert wasteland. It has not rained in that area in years, which is why camp counselors believed this, would be a perfect place to teach troubled kids a lesson. Throughout the novel, Stanley learns that though the people who surround him are the biggest influences. Stanley realizes his transformation from being a young boy and entering manhood. The novel Holes shows that negative treatment from friends and family have a positive impact on the journey towards manhood.