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Holes by louis sachar text analysis
Common themes in literature
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Holes
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.
When he was a boy, Stanley's great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, received a pig from Madame Zeroni, a gypsy, in exchange for a promise. Elya's promise was that
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In this Texas town, the schoolteacher, Katherine Barlow, falls in love with Sam, the onion seller. Sam sells onions to eat and to use for medicinal purposes. While Katherine and Sam are alive, racism is institutionalized in the United States and it is against the law for a black man to kiss a white woman. Because Sam is black and Katherine is white, the people in the town become irate when they find that Katherine and Sam have kissed. Charles, or Trout, Walker, the richest man in town has always wanted to marry Katherine. He is already mad that Katherine does not wish to go out with him so when he finds out that she is in love with Sam he gathers the townspeople to burn the schoolhouse and attack Sam. Katherine seeks help from the local sheriff but instead finds that the sheriff, who makes lewd advances towards her, also wants to kill Sam. Katherine and Sam attempt to escape but their boat is destroyed while only half way across the lake and Sam is killed. Katherine is driven mad by her grief and becomes an outlaw known as Kissin' Kate Barlow. Her name refers to the fact that she kisses the men she kills, leaving a lipstick imprint of her lips on their faces. In her twenty years of robbing people in the west, she happens to rob Stanley's great- grandfather while he is on his way from New York to California. She buries Stanley's great-grandfather's money somewhere and even though Charles Walker and his wife Linda try to torture her into revealing its location, Kate dies before anyone can find out where the money is hidden. After the day that Sam is killed, rain stops falling on Green Lake and the lake dries
When Jim first moves to Nebraska as a 10 year old boy, he takes the train from Virginia with Jake who is to look after him. Riding on the train, Jim is blown away by the stunning beauty of the plains and the landscape of the cornhusker state. He has never seen so much freedom and opportunity when looking at the world. When he is on the farm with his grandparents, his love for the land grows even stronger. Jim absorbs things and takes them in like he never has before, and truly
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
“I told Lori about my escape fund, the seventy-five dollars I’d saved. From now on, I said, it would be our joint fund. We’d take on extra work after school and put everything we earned into a piggy bank. Lori would take it to New York and use it to get established, so that by the time I arrived, everything would be set.”(223) Lori and Jeannette work to earn money so they can leave. They named the piggy bank that they keep their money in Oz because New York City seems like The Emerald City to them. The two sisters went through so many struggles growing up they are determined to leave Welch and begin a new and better life. “ ‘I’ll never get out of here,’ Lori kept saying. ‘I’ll never get out of here.’ ‘You will,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of Welch, neither would I.” (229). Lori and Jeannette have had a tough childhood and they need to escape Welch. They know that if they stay in Welch their life will always be full of challenges. New York is their escape from a life full of hardships and challenges. “I wondered if he was hoping that his favorite girl would come back, or if he was hoping that, unlike him, she would make it out for good.” (241). When Jeannette leaves her dad lost hope. He has always let his kids down and New York City is their escape. New York City represents their freedom. Their freedom from a life full of
He is not allowed to sleep in the bunkhouse with the rest of the ranch workers, as they are afraid that they might catch a. disease off him, so instead he has to sleep in the barn with the animals. They are the best. He lives a life of solitude, being alone in the barn with no-one coming in to talk to him. You got no right to come in. room', 'I aint wanted in the bunkhouse
At first glance, the readers have preconceived ideas that the story’s theme is one of a positive nature. One anticipates that there will be a character with good fortune; however, once reading it only becomes evident in the middle of the story. Readers begin to understand that he person who has the misfortune, the colored paper, is stoned to death in front of the whole community. This is evident when it states, “It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before…there was a stir in the crowd” (Jackson 249). This quote emphasis’s the negative connotation related to the black dot, which makes readers aware of the detriments related. Its relevance leads readers to understanding the development of the drama. Within the Hutchinson’s family, the mother, Tessie Hutchinson, is the victim to the lottery that
Did you have any ancestors in your family who were slaves? The main characters in this book was Thomas and Birdie who were slaves and Corporal Henry Green who was in the army.. Thomas was a young, smart boy who wanted his freedom and did not want to be a slave. Birdie is Thomas little sister. She was five years old. Thomas and Birdie were black slaves who lived on a slave plantation. Corporal Henry Green was a white soldier fighting in the Civil War to end slavery. The setting took place in June 1863, on a late afternoon on Knox’s Farm in Virginia. Thomas and Birdie was hungry and he was trying to catch a squirrel for dinner. Thomas and Bird were talking and hunting for dinner and talking about their cousin Clem who was sold and escaped for freedom. Clem was like a father to them and he told them about following the North Star for freedom. Their mother died, and they didn’t know their father. Two men came to the farm wanting to take Thomas away to their farm. Thomas grabbed his sister and they ran to escaped their farm home in Virginia. They ran into the forest to follow the North Star to freedom.
The story begins in a small town in America. The Fowler family is faced with the burden, frustration and pain of having to bury their twenty-one year old son, Frank. The inward struggle faced by Matt Fowler, his wife, and family drives him to murder Richard Strout, Frank's killer, in order to avenge his son's murder and bring peace to himself and his family. Matt faced a life-time struggle to be a good father and protect his children from danger throughout their childhood. Dubus describes Matt's inner ...
To start off the weekly supplies don’t arrive at all. The sky no longer turns blue but stays a dull grey 24/7. And to top it all off the walls stop closing. Thomas with the help of Chuck and Theresa finds a cliff in the maze that he sees grievers jump off and disappear through some sort of door outside of the maze. He also finds a pattern in the constantly changing maze. A series of words, FLOAT, CATCH, BLEED, DEATH, STIFF, and PUSH. He can’t seem to figure out what it means but memorizes them just in case. After much convincing and many more deaths from grievers roaming the camps at night, the group finally decides to try their luck and go to the
In the middle of the night, four white men storm into a cabin in the woods while four others wait outside. The cabin belongs to Alice and her mom. The four men pull out Alice’s father along with her mom, both are naked. Alice manages to scramble away. The men question Alice’s father about a pass, which allows him to visit his wife. Her father tries to explain the men about the loss of the pass but the men do not pay any attention to him. Instead they tie him to a tree and one of the white man starts to whip him for visiting his wife without the permission of Tom Weylin, the “owner” of Alice’s father. Tom Weylin forbid him to see his wife, he ordered him to choose a new wife at the plantation, so he could own their children. Since Alice’s mother is a free woman, her babies would be free as well and would be save from slavery. But her freedom “status” does not stop one of the patroller to punch her in the face and cause her to collapse to the ground.
AN IMAGINATIVE AND MISCHIEVOUS BOY named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment on Saturday. At first, Tom is disappointed by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades these treasures for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses and uses the tickets to claim a Bible as a prize. He loses much of his glory, however, when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first two disciples were David and Goliath.
In Coraghessan Boyle “Greasy Lake” the narrator goes through some wild adventures. He considers himself as a tough guy. Not knowing the obstacles he’s about to take will change the way he thinks of himself. In the story three teenage boys who think as themselves as bad boys, make a number of mistakes and at the end suffer the consequences.
As Scout and Jem Finch grow up they are exposed to a distressing controversy about her fathers lawsuit that he is defending. Scout's father Atticus Finch is defending Tom Robinson a southern black man who is accused of assault. The entire community are against Tom because he is a black man and agrees he should spend time in a solitary confinement even though he is innocent. While the case is going on Scout get's teased in class from other students because her father is helping a black man. Scout was raised to respect everyone regardless of their colour and that everyone is equal and has the rights o...
When the author drives Mr. Norton they pass several log cabins, one of which belongs to Jim Trueblood. Jim Trueblood has a bad reputation for committing what many see as a crime. He raped his daughter and enjoyed it. Jim Trueblood is blind in a sense that he doesn’t realize wh...
Through a family of peasants, he learns of language, music, and complex emotions. The creature has nothing but good intentions towards the cottagers and anonymously helps them in a variety of tasks. “I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of cottagers, but I was shut out…” (119). He is excited to learn language, but saddened to discover that he has no one to share it with. He then learns the De Lacey family’s saddening history. The family lost their social and economic status, as well as their home in Paris. Felix De Lacey fell in love with Muhammad’s daughter. Muhammad rejected him because of his Christian belief and fall in social rank. He took his daughter to Italy and cruelly sent them “…a pittance of money...” (125). Felix is separated both from his love and society. The creature notices that the family can overcome great hardships because they have each other. “But where were my friends and relations?...What was I?” (120). He determines to try as hard as he can to become a part of the family. He works up the courage to address Felix’s blind father, but Felix beats him and drives him from the cottage. The entire family is terrified of him. The creature has lost his only connection to society. “There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies?”
...to her how she shouldn't be giving him love even if he was conceived and born in the womb. Because he was sent away at an early age of his life, Oswald did not receive any love from his parents, hence, why he believes that a person shouldn't owe anything to the other even though they are blood related.