Apprenticeshipp of Duddy Kravitz

ISU-Duddy Kravitz Essay

What is the price of success? In the novel “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” Duddy shows a great deal of determination in pursuing his dream on finding land “A man without land is nobody” Duddy says this many times throughout the novel and it shows how he is willing to go to any extent to pursue and achieve that goal by doing both good and bad things just to become successful.
Early in the novel, Duddy worked in a hotel as a waiter in Ste. Agathe and becomes really close friends with an employee named Yvette who takes Duddy out to see an unknown lake only seen by a few lucky people who know of its whereabouts, which is where Duddy begins to strive for his goal. Duddy pleaded to Yvette not to tell anyone about the lake because he doesn’t want other people to get the same idea that Duddy had thought of. He said that he would give her money just to keep it a secret. “If you promise me that I’ll give you fifty dollars” (pg. 100). This shows how Duddy will do anything to keep the land he’s encountered a secret to everyone until he owns it all, which also shows how he will use other people into getting what he wants. This is shown because he’s trying to persuade Yvette to stay quiet about the lake and is trying to bribe her with money to keep quiet.
Another example as to how Duddy is willing to go to any extent to achieve his goal was by helping “The Boy Wonder” smuggle heroin across the border into Canada just to get a little extra cash. “The coffee tin was not sealed. He opened it, but what he was looking for-he did not find. There was no coffee in the tin, but the white sweet-smelling dust inside meant nothing to him” (pg. 144). The coffee tin was emptied and was replaced with heroin to make it look like he was carrying coffee across the border. When he got past the guards, he met up with a drug dealer and gave him the package Duddy was carrying. This shows how Duddy will go to any extent in achieving his goal because he risked his life by getting involved in a drug deal and risked getting caught by the police when he was going through customs just so he could get some more money to buy the land he wants.
Later on in the novel, Duddy meets a man named Virgil. Duddy, Making his way into the film industry asks Virgil, an unemployed man, to become Duddy’s traveling projectionist. Soon after Duddy came to know about Virgil’s epileptic episodes, but with Duddy short on henchmen and in need of a driver, he still makes Virgil drive a car when in any moment he could have an epilepsy attack. “Mr. Kravitz? I’m an epileptic” (pg. 207). Since Duddy has a short on henchmen and is in need of a driver, he makes Virgil drive a car, crashes it and becomes paralyzed. “Virgil’s been in an accident. The truck went into a tree outside St Jerome” (pg. 245). This shows how selfish and resourceful Duddy is because even though Duddy knew about Virgil’s epileptic episodes, he made him drive only for his benefit and makes him resourceful because he had no one else to drive the car which made Duddy work with what he had. Once again, this shows how Duddy is willing to risk everything just to get his land.
One of the worst things that Duddy did to get the land he wanted was through stealing. Near the end of the novel, Duddy ran out of ideas to get money and went into a nervous break down. Once he got out of that stage he tried to start all over but it was too hard for him to so instead he begged everyone he knew for money to try and get just enough for him to buy his precious land. After doing so, he still ended up short, so he took one of Virgil’s cheques from his cheque book and forged a mass cheque for himself using the money put in Virgil’s bank account for his incident in his car crash causing him to become paralyzed from the waist down. Duddy says:
They’re forcing me into it. Pushing me, he thought, and he went into Virgil’s room. The chequebook wasn’t even hidden. Jeez, he thought. It was on top of the dresser with the passbook. Duddy took a quick look at Virgil’s bank balance, whistled, noted his account number and ripped out two cheques. He forged the signature by holding the cheque and a letter Virgil had signed up to the window and tracing slowly (pg. 304)
This is also another great example that shows his selfishness and how he only cares about the land he’s set his eyes upon. Duddy used the money that was put into Virgil’s account to pay for all the expenses from the damages that Duddy caused. This is also another example how he only cares about the land he wants to buy because he’s willing to steal money to get it and he’s willing to use his friends in ways he shouldn’t ever do.
Duddy shows that he’s willing to go to any extent in pursuing his goal, which is shown by first asking Yvette to keep the lake a secret and not telling anyone about it. Duddy then helped smuggle heroin across the border for a few extra dollars in his pocket. He then uses a man named Virgil to be his henchmen and do what he asks like drive him places and pick up or deliver packages even though Duddy knew he had epilepsy. Finally Duddy stole a huge lump sum of money from Virgil’s bank account that was to help pay for everything that Virgil will need since he’s paralyzed. “I’m going to get that land no matter what” (pg. 302). This shows how he will go to any level in getting what he wants most, no matter what the cost or the trouble of getting it.