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)

Analysis - Holes

After I've finished the book, I will analyse the book to express some interesting points about the novel. First of all, as I've already written in my previous entries, the novel has an immersive style making the reader addicted to the book. Secondly, different views to events like one chapter focusing on Stanley, one chapter to Elya, one chapter to Kate Barlow (a thief which buried a treasure under the camp area causing actually the establishment of it) and one chapter to facts which the reader is let know between the real story make the reader able to make predictions and try to understand which connections are there between those chapters; and also creates an amusing suspense during the reading. The style of sliced flashback parts (from the present time to hundred years ago, when Elya and Kate Barlow lived) is used effectively which maintains the enthusiasm of the reader.

Thirdly, the author's style of giving hints to the reader for connecting the times and parts makes the reader give mental effort to understand what the connections mean. (i.e. ''When he/she smiled, his/her mouth seemed too big for his/her face.'' (p. 182, l. 13)/used firstly about Zero, than about a women, indicating that the women was Zero's mom.)
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Prediction-On the mountain

If I would made a prediction about what comes next, I would say firstly that they wouldn't die. Why? Because it's a novel and the main character does never die before changing something in a story! Stanley hadn't changed anything yet and so we could easily understand that he would survive. There would be three options: Either they would find a way to arrive to a civilization without boiling on the desert, they would find an entrance unter the 'thumb' which opens to a huge cave system and they will find the people from the destiny of Agartha (to prevent  confusion: The destiny of Agartha doesn't have to do anything with the novel.) or they would walk back to the camp. I have predicted that Stanley would survive and Zero would die, after he had said he was the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni and he had forgived him and his descendants due to Stanley's helping efforts to him. And then, when he had no more hope, he would find something in the mountain that will rescue him from all those and bring him back home. His character and physical power would be improved considerably and he would remember Zero for his entire remaining life.-or maybe not, in the event he would get rid of the curse!

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Poor Zero.

10 Most Important Things Happened So Far

In this entry I would like to write 10 most important things happened so far in the novel, which are milestones that formed the current situation especially of Stanley and Zero. Those are;

1. that Stanley was sentenced to be sent to the camp,
2. that he argued with a boy and deserved then to join to the squad,
3. that he noticed the 'big thumb',
4. that he accepted to teach Zero reading and writing,
5. that Zero protected her during his fight,
6. that Zero ran away from the camp,
7. that the officials decided to destroy Zero's data from the system,
8. that Stanley ran away from the camp to find Zero,
9. that he could find Zero and managed to reach to the mountains with him,
10. that they could find onions and water.
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(Photo: Stanley and Zero)

Looking Back-On the mountain

Let's summarize what had happened until the scene that Stanley and Zero were besides a stone figure called ‘big thumb’ on a mountain. They have managed to survive on the mountain by eating onions and drinking muddy water, but they haven't known what to do next.

As you all know, Stanley was sentenced to be sent to the Camp Green Lake, which was unlike its meaning a barren wasteland and young boys made improve their chararacters by digging holes everyday. Although he had problems with socializing, he managed to build friendships with the others. One day he found a metal object with a symbol 'KB' and then they all were made dig more than usual that whole week. He realized there that it wasn't just character improvement intented to reach at the Camp Green Lake. There was a boy called Zero, who was behaved as an idiot, as a 'nothing'. When he saw Stanley was writing a letter to his mom, he asked him to teach reading&writing. After about 2 or 3 weeks, Stanley had a fight with one of the boys there, and Zero defended Stanley. But then the situation got worse and Zero ran away from the camp. Because the officials didn't seem to care Zero, Stanley felt guilty and he also escaped from the camp to find Zero. He found him and escaped together to a mountain seen also from the camp. 

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The plan showing the way walked by Stanley and Zero.

First Impressions about the Novel 'Holes'-2

I would like to tell you also about the context, how the story began, and my first impressions about it.

A young middle school boy called Stanley is sent to the Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility because he is thought that he committed a crime, and he thinks, naturally, that he is being sent to a camp at edge of a lake. We learn that Stanley didn't committed a crime, at least as he states that, and he blames only his misfortune for the situation and also for lots of unlucky events he experienced in his life, derived from his 'no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather'. He has problems with his social environment and having friends. He's made fun of his fatness and behaved as a loser. (like all main character personalities whose situation gets very well at the end of story). He is suprised, of course, when he arrives at the camp and saw a barren wasteland, a desert. He met the boys staying in the same tent with him, calling themselves with unusual names like Armpit, Squid, X-Ray and Zero. Interestingly, he doesn't behaved as a loser by them and he joins to 'the squad' at the end of the next day. Then the author starts to tell us about Stanley's Latvian great-great-grandfather and how he was cursed by a Gypsy because he didn't keep his promise. Until this point of story, it seems the introduction part of the story ended, because we can't make any predictions about what is coming next. But as I also expressed it in the second entry, the effectiveness of the introduction part (especially the first chapters can be realized well, as the reader feels very curious about what comes next, and that makes the reading unstressful and immersive.

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Stanley Yelnats in the movie 'Holes' (2003).

First Impressions about the Novel 'Holes'

As I firstly hold the book, I thought it would take a very long time to finish it. This thought was coming from the experience I've had of reading the German novel given as an assignment for the holiday, the 'Schachnovelle' (Chess Story) written by Stefan Zweig, because it took 6 minutes for each page and lasted a whole week to finish it, although it was only about a hundred pages! Since the novel 'Holes' was about 200 pages and with much smaller font size, I was afraid of not being able to finish it in a week. But, when I started to read it, I realized that the novel had a beautiful fluency to read.
The language of the novel also wasn't hard like Schachnovelle, and some words that could be unknown were explained at the end of the page, but after a while I also left looking to them and try understanding the word from the context.
And most importantly, I had the feeling that attracts you to the book and makes you unable to have a break, which provided an immersive reading of the novel.
Different from lots of usual stories, the novel started with facts. That's true, it started to describe the place where the story happened, the Camp Green Lake, completely unemotionally and than the real story began. It seems that the importance of the description will be understood later.

This was the imagination of the Camp Green Lake after I read the first four chapters. If the novel wouldn't have expressed in the first chapter that Camp Green Lake is a desert, I would have thought completely different than the picture. Naturally. 

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Getting Started

Hi everyone! Unfortunately I've had problems with internet connection and for that reason I hadn't been able to write my blog in the holiday. But since the holiday hasn't finished yet, I'm going to start and finish my blog in this week. And I took my notes during  the reading so I will also share predictions and recounts from a definite point of the story with you. As you can understand from the title, the blog will be about the novel 'Holes' written by Louis Sachar. He won the Newberry Award for this novel in 1998, and as my first statement, I can say that he has really deserved this prize for writing this novel. Since I read always informing books like biological encyclopedias, books and articles about international relationships and diplomacy , and also study guides and other internet articles regarding the issues we discuss in Model United Nations or European Youth Parliament conferences, this book presented almostly a different point of view to my selectionism of reading. I almost decided reading such interesting but not factually informing books from now on. Whatever, there is also the film of the novel released in 2003 with the same title, and you can find the picture of the book cover and the trailer of the film 'Holes' below.

Have fun with the reading!

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