Holes essay: curses

Curses are a theme of the novel Holes written by the author Louis Sachar. The novel is centred on two main curses covering over two hundred years. The focus of this essay will be the family “curse” of the Yelnats family, the family this novel is based around, and how the curse affected five generations of this family. Stanley Yelnats IV is the fifth generation to be affected by the family curse and it was his great-great grandfather who supposedly caused the curse; so when Stanley was arrested and sent to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility for stealing shoes he didn’t really steal, he wasn’t very surprised and all he could do was blame his “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather”. This essay will explain the cause of the curse and how it impacted on the five generations of Yelnats and will discuss whether this impact was ultimately good or bad.

This portion of the essay will provide a short synopsis of the novel including information on Stanley Yelnats IV and of when Stanley first arrived at Camp Green Lake and will show how these relate to the curse. The Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility (or just Camp Green Lake) based in the former town of Green Lake, Texas is a detention centre where the occupants are made to dig holes as part of “character building”. When Stanley first found himself at this camp all he could do was count it as more bad luck caused by his great-great-grandfather; Elya Yelnats. The person who Stanley’s parents had told him had stolen a pig from a one-legged Gypsy woman. The Gypsy woman then, supposedly, put a curse on Elya; and all of his descendants including Stanley himself. When Stanley was asked by his camp counsellor; Mr Pendanski, whose fault it was that he had been sent to the camp he replied; “My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.” (Page 57) Although Stanley may need further investigation to fully understand the circumstances in which Elya “stole” Madame Zeroni’s pig and in turn caused a curse to be bestowed upon him and his ancestors. Maybe if Stanley knew what the reader knew he wouldn’t feel as bad towards his great-great-grandfather.

So far Elya Yelnats would seem to be… well, a no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealer but when he received the pig (not by theft, by the way) he didn’t know how many problems it would cause, all that was running through his head was Myra Menke; this paragraph will divulge what happened with Elya Yelnats and Madame Zeroni to cause the family curse. When he was fifteen; Elya Yelnats, born in Latvia, fell in love with Myra Menke (mainly her beauty) and asked her father for her hand in marriage offering only “A heart full of love” (Page 29). But there was also Igor Barkov offering his fattest pig. Unfortunately for Elya, Myra’s father preferred the pig.

But there was still time for Elya, as Myra wasn’t to wed until her fifteenth birthday, if Elya found a fatter pig than Igor’s, he would still be able to marry her. Elya went to Madame Zeroni (the one-legged Gypsy woman) to talk to her, as she was his friend. When he went there he wasn’t expecting her to have a pig for him but it turned out that her pig gave birth to a litter. At first Madame Zeroni was against the idea of Elya marrying Myra as her “head is as empty as a flowerpot” (Page 29) and that she can’t do anything intelligent but Madame Zeroni made a deal with Elya that he could have the runt of the new born litter and if he carried it up the mountain on the edge of the forest, make it drink from the stream and sing to it a special poem every day until Myra’s fifteenth birthday it would grow bigger and bigger and would eventually outsize Igor’s pig. Madame Zeroni said he could have the pig on the condition that once he grew strong enough, to take the full grown pig up the mountain, he would return for her to take her up the mountain and sing to her. Elya accepted and “Madame Zeroni warned that if he failed to do this, he and his descendants would be doomed for all of eternity” (Page 31). Elya did what he was told to do with the pig; he took it up the mountain, made it drink the water from the stream and sung it the poem every day up until Myra’s birthday but regrettably not on the day like he was supposed to; his pig weighed the exact same as Igor’s. So Myra’s father left the decision up to her of who she wanted to marry. When Myra was unable to decide who to marry, Elya felt insulted and let her marry Igor. He was so distracted by what had happened he forgot all about Madame Zeroni and found a job on a ship traveling to America. From that day on Elya experienced a lot of bad luck and so did his son; Stanley Yelnats the first and every Stanley after that. Every Stanley, I-IV were all affected in some way by the curse. The next paragraph is dedicated to the effects on the Yelnats family of the curse.

This paragraph will explain the effects of the curse while it lasted over five generations up until it ended with Elya Yelnats great-great-grandson finally fulfilling the promise by carrying Madame Zeroni’s great-great-great-grandson up a mountain. The first Stanley Yelnats won millions of dollars in the stock market but had it all stolen from him by the outlaw Kiss’ n’ Kate Barlow and was then left for dead in the desert and only survived because he “found refuge on God’s thumb” (Page 128) (a mountain where water is stored in the rock). Not much is known about Stanley Yelnats II but he is known to have always blamed his grandfather for his many misfortunes. Stanley Yelnats III was an inventor who spent many years working on an invention to recycle old sneakers because “The first person who finds a use for old sneakers will be a very rich man” (Page 10). But he was never successful and in turn lived with his family in a small apartment that smelled like burning, old sneakers. Stanley Yelnats IV was no more fortunate than his ancestors and was always running into trouble with bullies like Derrick Dunne and math teachers like Mrs. Bell highlighting the fact of him being overweight by telling him he weighed a weight ratio of 3:1 compared to another student. But when old sneakers seemingly fell out of the sky Stanley thought he had finally found the good luck his family had been searching for. But it turned out it was just going to bring them further bad luck. The shoes turned out to be Clive Livingston’s (a famous baseball player) old baseball shoes, which were to be auctioned off for charity. Stanley ran to get home with the shoes and was soon arrested and sentenced to eighteen months in jail or at Camp Green Lake; fooled by the appealing title he picked the latter.

Unfortunately the misfortune didn’t end when he went to Camp Green Lake, many more misfortunes occurred including the events leading up to Stanley finding himself running for his life in the hot desert. At Camp Green Lake Stanley had become good friends with a boy named Hector “Zero” Zeroni and after Zero hit Mr. Pendanski in the head with a shovel and ran into the desert it was Stanley’s responsibility as a friend to go out and search for him. When Stanley found Zero under a boat and accidently ate his last food supply, he told him about how his great-grandfather was left in the desert and how he said he found refuge on “God’s thumb”, Stanley said he had seen a rock formation on the top of a mountain in the shape of a giant fist with the thumb sticking up and said that if they could get to it they may find refuge, so they started on their journey. Once Stanley and Zero had made it up to the base of the mountain Zero started to feel sick from the combined strain of having to make it all the way to the mountain from Camp Green Lake and eating nothing but “sploosh” for the last week, but they kept walking. When they were starting to near the top of the mountain Zero passed out and was unable to get up, so Stanley had to carry Zero up the remainder of the mountain. And when Stanley and Zero did make it to the top of the mountain Stanley found a puddle of water which he widened. Stanley gave some of the water to Zero. As Zero got better and Zero started to fall asleep, Stanley decided to sing the poem Elya taught his son (after he came to America and married) who taught it to his son who taught it to Stanley’s dad who taught it to Stanley who sung it to Zero.

Although it was never certain that there ever was a curse, when Stanley (the great-great-grandson of Elya Yelnats) carried Zero (the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni) up a mountain (not the same mountain though), gave him water from the stream and sung to him an altered version of the poem, the curse seemed to be lifted; in the last part of the novel no more bad luck seemed to befall Stanley or his father. The day after Stanley sung to Zero the song of his ancestors was the day that Stanley III invented a cure for foot odour and hired a lawyer for Stanley who proved he was innocent and was able to be freed from Camp Green Lake (as soon as he got back). Stanley uncovered the stock certificates of the first Stanley Yelnats which had been stolen by Kissin’ Kate Barlow and buried. Stanley and Zero were rich; Zero had enough money to buy a team of private investigators to find his estranged mother and Stanley had enough money to buy a house for him and his parents.

In the concluding portion of this essay I will write my theories on the curse, whether or not it was that bad. In the end Stanley ended up with a new best friend, a big, new house and no bad luck; the curse for Stanley (maybe not as much for his ancestors) may have been more of a blessing as it delivered all these things. Even during the reign of the curse, the people who were affected by it only suffered some unfortunate experiences while most of those lead to good things. The first Stanley Yelnats may have been robbed and left in the desert but he was lucky to have survived and to have been rescued by the rattle snake hunters and if he hadn’t been rescued and sent to the hospital he never would have met his wife (who was his nurse at the hospital) and without the knowledge he told his son and grandson about how he “found refuge on God’s thumb” Stanley never would have survived when he was in the desert.

In conclusion, although the novel Holes, does include a series of events that at first glance would seem to be “curses”, they could also be seen as ironic gifts. Through a long series of events as outlined in this essay, the original curse that started with a mere act of absentmindedness, was finally lifted with an act of selflessness as Stanley carried his friend up the side of a mountain. Finally, the family that never did anything wrong in the first place were freed of their bad luck and were set for a fortunate future.