Holes by Louis Sachar

Holes: Main Character

 

The novel I read is Holes by Louis Sachar. Stanley Yelnats is the main character. He was from a poor family. He was overweight and kids often teased him hence he had no friends.

Stanley was arrested by police although he did nothing wrong. He was innocent of the crime of which he was convicted. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He blamed it on his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather which was his family joke. Supposedly, he had a great-great-grandfather who had stolen a pig from one-legged Gypsy and she put a curse on him and all his descendants. They didn’t believe in the curse but it felt good to be able to blame someone whenever anything went wrong.

It was either Camp Green Lake or jail. At the camp, the boys must dig a hole a day, five feet deep and across, in the dried up lake bed. The Warden claimed the labour is character building but it was a lie.

Stanley was a kind-hearted boy. He promised to teach Zero, a boy whom he befriended after a while he stayed in the camp. The Warden assumed that Zero was stupid because he did not know how to write nor read and he only likes digging holes. Stanley was furious that they looked down on Zero and was determined to teach him more.

Stanley was also a brave person. He escaped from the camp a few days after Zero escaped. The Warden did not bother to fence up the camp as they knew people who escaped couldn’t survive without their water supply. Stanley walked on the desert for a few hours with empty canteen. He wanted to turn around and head back but he knew the consequences. He found Zero in an upside down boat. They headed to a mountain which had a shape of big thumb. Stanley carried Zero all the way into the mountain as Zero had a stomach-ache and was too weak to walk.

In a nutshell, Stanley Yelnats was a kind-hearted and brave friend one can get. He was also a filial son for not wanting his parents to worry about him by writing letters to comfort them. 

Diong Wei Shan 

4 Cergas

14th January 2014