Character Development

Author's Note: In the book Holes  by Louis Sachar, Stanley Yelnats changes dramatically from unlucky, poor, and lonely to lucky, rich, and having a friend. I chose Stanley in this book because he changed the most.

In the book Holes by Louis Sachar, not everyone has a perfect life, especially Stanley Yelnats IV. Stanley is a poor city boy living with his mom, dad, and grandpa. He is sent to a juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn’t commit. Stanley is unlucky from his family’s so called “curse”, but throughout the book he makes friends and is no longer unlucky. Stanley went from poor, lonely and unlucky, to rich, friendly, and lucky.

 

Stanley was living in a cramped apartment with his parents and grandfather. His bad luck occurred very often as the book says, "Things went wrong a  lot. They always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  He was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was falsely accused of stealing shoes. Since he didn’t have any friends, no one cared he was sent to Camp Green Lake except his family.

Stanley started to change when the other boys in his group at Camp Green Lake gave him a nickname. They accepted him and he realized it. He became friends with another boy in his group nicknamed Zero. Zero ran away from Camp Green Lake,  “He tried not to think about Zero. It was too late. Either he’d made it to Big Thumb, or…  What worried him the most, however, wasn’t that it was too late, What worried him the most, what really ate at his insides, was the fear that it wasn’t too late.  What if zero was still alive, desperately crawling across the dirt searching for water? He tried to force the image out of his mind.”Stanley cared for Zero so much he ran away to find Zero. He found Zero and together the made it to a mountain that looked like a thumb with water at the top and the “curse” was broken. The Yelnats’s finally became lucky and Stanley acquired a lifelong friend.

Stanley influenced Zero greatly by teaching him how to read. ”I’ll try to teach you to read if you want, Stanley offered. I don’t know if I know how to teach, but I’m not that worn out today, since you dug a lot of my hole.” In return for teaching Zero, Zero helped dig Stanley’s hole. This also influenced Zero to realize he hated digging holes quicker causing him to run off sooner.

 Stanley really influenced me by showing how good my life is. Camp Green Lake is a lake that is completely dry where the boys dig holes. There is no shade in the lake so the temperature was scorching. When Stanley first arrived at Camp Green Lake “Stanley looked out the dirty window. He couldn’t see a lake. And hardly anything was green.” I can’t imagine how hot Stanley was digging holes. When he finished digging his first hole he didn’t have the strength to get out so he made indents in the hole so he could climb out. I have never faced any major problems in life, yet Stanley was having problems every day.

Stanley is a lot like Jeffery “Maniac” Magee from the book Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. “Yet there are other theories. Some say he just got tired of running. Some say it was the butterscotch Krimpets. And some say he only intended to pause here but that he stayed because he was so happy to make a friend.” Both characters gained a lifelong friend, were poor in the beginning, and also ran away, Stanley from Camp Green Lake and “Maniac” from his Aunt and Uncle.

Throughout the book Holes by Louis Sachar, Stanley changed greatly. Stanley changed after Camp Green Lake, but most importantly, he had started a new life. Not just Stanley changed, he also influenced Zero by becoming his friend and teaching him how to read. After reading this book you realize how good your life is and sometimes there are happy endings.