Character Analysis - Stanleyelnats - 3: Letter

And now, if I would send a letter to Stanley to tell him my thoughts, it would include the following text:

Dear Stanley,

I don't know if you have realized it, but you've changed considerably since you've been to the Camp Green Lake. You were treated by your so-called friends like a loser and had accepted your bad luck as your destiny. But I've witnessed the big change in your thoughts about your 'destiny', you've began to beleive in good luck, and the success coming from the hope. You've improved your courage which began with the moment you decided to drive that water truck to save your friend Zero. I'm so pleased that you've changed your personality which is now even better than many others, and I'm aware you've deserved that with your surviving experience, on desert and on mountain. Also, it is interesting that your personality has changed like in novels, you had a worse personality and been a loser for a long time, and you hadn't complain about that. Then you've experienced hard circumstances and at the end improved your character to live happily for your remaining life. An author should really write your interesting story-like life so everyone can get main ideas from that!

Yours,

Yiğit

(Photo: Stanleyelnats)

Character Analysis - Stanleyelnats - 2: He and Zero

At that point of the story, in which the Camp Green Lake era for Stanley was about to finish, but he was about to die, his personality had been improved considerably. He had managed to build new friendships and join to the squad of the boys in his tent, had experienced hard work and learned surviving in hard circumstances, as he had worked thirsty unter the burning sun without being aware of how many days passed since he had come to the camp, and survived on a mountain by eating onions and drinking muddy water. He had learned to help his friends like Zero and obtained the faith that luck can be sometimes on his side. And also he was physically strong and mentally self-confident.

The relationship between Stanley and Zero was also changed. At the beginning Zero was a 'nothing' also for Stanley, like all other boys and even counselors, he hadn't liked speaking, and the only thing he had said was that he had liked digging holes. But after about a month from Stanley's arrival on the camp, they've made an aggrement. Stanley started to teach Zero the letters and Zero proposed to dig his hole for an hour. Than Zero ran away from the camp due to a fight caused partially from Stanley and Stanley escaped from the camp to find him. After they had found each other, they climbed to a mountain to take refugee. They managed to survive and built a strong friendship. After they had come back to the normal life, they were friends very close to each other. And the interesting thing was, because Stanley helped Zero survive from a poisoning and Zero was coincidently (It's actually the destiny.) the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni, the curse on Stanley disappeared.

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(Photo: The Character Zero (Hector Zeroni))

Character Analysis - Stanleyelnats - 1: Overview

In this entry of my blog, I would like to analyse our unlucky main character Stanley's characteristic and then compare the characters of Stanley in two points of the story, one is being when he first arrived at the camp and one is when he was covered by lots of poisonous yellow-spotted lizards.

First of all, I liked the character of Stanley, because after I finished the book and discovered his almost entire personality, it was impossible not to like such a character. I was happy after I finished the book, because I thought Stanley would face lots of bad things because of his bad luck, but it didn't. His personality was improved by the events he experienced on the barren desertland, not only by joining to the social environment there, but also by escaping to the mountains to save his friend Zero and surviving there with him.

When he first came to the camp, he was thinking he was unlucky and cursed for his remaining life because of his great-great-grandfather. But the interesting fact is that he had never been desperate. That means he have always had a hope that he would regularize his life despite the curse. He wasn't so tended to build new friendships, but he wasn't complaining about anything except his great-great-grandfather. And physically, he was so fat and weak to do hard work. We can understand that from the effects of digging holes on Stanley on first days.

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(Photo: Stanleyelnats-Our Lovely Main Character)

Personal Connection - Elya Yelnats - 3: Possible questions

If I would have been Elya, despite it being to late and writing such an unlogical letter to my descendants, I would have thought again and again before I board on the ship. I don't beleive that such a disappointment caused from a broken love can justify his boarding on that ship! At least, their children doesn't deserve taking part in that punishment. If I could have changed it, I would have cursed only the no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

Maybe I also would like to ask questions to Elya regarding that issue, to be able to understand his thoughts about that:

Why did you board on that ship without thinking the curse being real?

Do you think now it was worth destroying your life in your fatherland because of Myra?

Do you think Madame Zeroni was right to curse you because you didn't keep your promise?

If you could select being cursed in the USA with your wife or being alone in Latvia, what would you choose?

Do you think your son and his descendants will be really affected from the curse? If yes, will there be a way to remove this curse?

And maybe also to the author, to Louis Sachar I would like to ask some questions like the following ones:

Do you think it's logical or moral that Elya's all descendants will be affected by the curse?

Was Madame Zeroni a grim woman or she became just so sad that she cursed Elya? Or was it only because of the promise?

Is it really so logical that Myra couldn't decide on whom to marry?

Can a person in the same situations with Elya in real life really think directly leaving the country without waiting some more days to keep its promise?

If you could have changed something in that part of the story, would you have changed something?

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(Picture: Louis Sachar)

Personal Connection - Elya Yelnats - 2: Letter to descendants

When I read that Elya boarded on the ship whose destination was the USA, I was completely surprised and also a bit disappointed. Was the reason of a hundred-year-long curse only an unlogical decision of Elya? I can't understand why he just didn't come back to Madame Zeroni. He was strong (he got strong by carrying the pig) and he had got everything, but a short moment probably with the thought of escaping from everything, changed the whole destiny! On the other side, it also seems too brutal to curse one's family forever only because of a thoughtlessness. Yes, I agree, maybe Madame Zeroni became very sad of losing her hope to go to that river, but it's still too brutal, in my opinion. I think, if Elya would have written a diary during the voyage, it could have been as it follows:

My dear descendants,

Today I didn't keep my promise about carrying a women called Madame Zeroni to a river in the mountains of my fatherland, Latvia, and as she said to me, I and you could be cursed for our entire lives. It's possible that you face very horrible things and events in your lives. If it happens, I only would like to say I fell in love with a very beautiful girl called Myra and because she turned her face to me, I got shocked and angry and decided immediately to leave the fatherland, escape to somewhere new and start a new life. I'm sorry. I hope it doesn't happen, but I feel the necessity saying to you that you always should think again, when you're giving a decision which can be a turning point in your lives. 

Yours, 

Elya

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(Photo: Unlogical character Elya Yelnats)

Personal Connection - Elya Yelnats - 1: Overview

I would like to write my thoughts about Elya Yelnats, Stanley's so-called no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

When he was young, Elya falls in love with a 14-year-old-girl Myra. Her father decides to get her daughter married in her 15th birthday. A 57-year-old man called Igor also wants to marry Myra and her father declares that he will give her daughter to the person giving the most valuable thing. He explains his problem to a Gypsy called Madame Zeroni and she gives him a piglet. She tells him that he should bring the piglet to the river in a mountain and make it drink from there. The piglet would be gradually bigger and at last he would take Myra by giving the pig. But he makes a mistake as he doesn't bring the pig to the river in the day the father makes his decision, and it weights the same as the pig of Igor. Elya gets angry because Myra is undecided and let his rival marry the girl. Then, as Madame Zeroni suggested to him, he migrates to the USA, without fulfilling his promise of carrying Madame to the river. Since that time, he and his descendants have been cursed by her.

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(Photo: Madame Zeroni)

Analysis - Holes - 2

When you analyse the life of Louis Sachar, the author of Holes, to understand how and when he writes, and his distinctive style of writing, you realize that he firstly started to think about a character, who was good-hearted, but unlucky and scoffed by its social environment; and then a place the story would happen, a desert, a barren wasteland symbolising the space. An isolation in which a character could face its problems without negative social effects. So Stanley and the desert were born. The five main themes of the novel were; misfortune, hope, friendship, confronting the challenges and lastly, faith.

A reader of the novel can find many ideas from it. It actually doesn't have a very clear main idea, but like almost every American novel, it gave the idea that all obstacles and problems can be defeated when you don't give up. If you doesn't lose your hope, the opportunity for a step of improvement will come and find you eventually. Besides that, the novel 'Holes' emphasizes the importance of friendship, giving a very appropriate example of the relationship between Zero and Stanley. And it directly tells you that even a person who seems like 'nothing' can change your life and its friendship can be very beneficial for you. So, don't see anyone as unworthy to meet and know!
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(Photo: Zero and Stanley)