Holes is a story about a boy called Stanley Yelnats, who has bad luck due to a
curse of his great-great-grandfather. He is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile
detention camp for bad boys, for a crime he did not commit. Stanley and the other
boys at the camp are forced to dig big holes in the middle of the dessert every day.
Stanley realizes that they are digging these holes because the warden is searching for
something. During the story the narrator tells some stories to reveal why Stanley’s
family has a curse and what the Warden is searching for.
Keeping promises, perseverance to keep on trying in face of difficulty and
kindness are present in the book in the different stories of Stanley’s family.
An example of keeping promises is when Stanley’s great-great-grandfather, Elya
Yelnats, received a pig from Madame Zeroni, a gypsy, in exchange for a promise.
Madame Zeroni gave that pig to Elya because he wanted to marry a girl, he had to
take the pig up a mountain and sing it a song, and this would make the pig be fatter.
The promise was that after the pig grew strong he would carry Madame Zeroni up the
mountain and sing her a song she taught him. When Elya Yelnats took the pig to the
girl he was in love with, he became disillusioned so he didn’t marry her. After the
disillusion he took a boat to America, forgetting his promise to Madame Zeroni. Elya
marries and has a child in America and always remembers Madame Zeroni, who he
thinks has cursed him for his failure.
This quote is very important in the book because we can explain one of the facts of the
Yelnats bad luck. We can learn that we have to keep our promises, because if we
don’t we can be curse.
A case of perseverance is the story of Katherine Barlow and Sam. Katherine
was a school teacher and falls in love with Sam a black man, he was an onion seller, to
eat and for medical purpose. In those days racism was...