Analysis Of Holes By Louis Sachar

Louis Sachar, an American writer, once wrote, “A lot of people don’t believe in curses. A lot of people don’t believe in yellow-spotted lizards either, but if one bites you it doesn’t make a difference whether you believe or not” (Sachar 41). The book I read was Holes by Louis Sachar. This book is about a boy, named Stanley Yelnats, who is ‘cursed’ with bad luck. The ‘curse’ started with Stanley’s no-good pig stealing great great grandfather. During the early parts of the story, Stanley is arrested and sent to Camp Green Lake where boys go to ‘build character’. While at Camp Green Lake, the boy had to dig five foot by five-foot holes. They said this was to ‘build character’; however it was not. This was to try to find treasure buried by Kissin’
This is where the majority of the story takes place and without this setting, the story couldn’t happen. To start off, describing Camp Green Lake “ Behind them the sky had turned dark, and for the first time in over a hundred years, a drop of rain fell into the empty lake(Sachar 225).” This quote is showing how dry this area was and how it has been in a drought for over a hundred years causing the lake that was once there to dry up. Another quote describing the setting is “ There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. There once was a very large lake, the largest in Texas. That was over a hundred years ago. Now it’s just a dry wasteland(Sachar 3).” This shows how this what once a very nice place to be and live, and when the lake dried up then it no longer was it was just a wasteland. This all tells about the setting and how it once was a very nice place to be and once the lake dried up then all the people left and that’s when the camp
She is the reason that Camp Green Lake started because she buried some ‘treasure’. To begin “Three days after Sam’s death Miss.Katherine shot the sheriff while he was sitting in his chair drinking a cup or coffee(Sachar 115).” This quote shows part of the reason that Kissin’ Kate became a thing the love of her life Same the onion man was killed because of his skin color and the schoolhouse in which she worked was burned. To continue, another quote that shows the subplot of Kissin’ Kate is “For the next twenty years Kissin’ Kate Barlow was one of the most feared outlaws in all the west(Sachar 115).” This quote shows how long she kept up being Kissin’ Kate before killing herself with a poison lizard towards the end of the book. All of this shows about the subplot of Kissin’ Kate