92 pages • 3 hours read
Louis SacharHoles
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “You Are Entering Camp Green Lake”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
The story starts with a description of Camp Green Lake: “just a dry, flat wasteland” (3). A hammock hangs between two shady trees, but only the Warden gets to use it. Sometimes campers want to be bitten by rattlesnakes and scorpions so that they don’t have to dig anymore, but they are much more careful with yellow-spotted lizards. Being bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard means that a person will die a “slow and painful death” (4).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Most campers are not given the choice of going to Camp Green Lake. However, Stanley Yelnats is given the choice of the camp or jail. Since he is from a poor family, he has never been to summer camp, which he imagines as being like Green Lake.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Stanley Yelnats takes a bus to Camp Green Lake. He wears handcuffs as he looks out the window and thinks about how “his parents had tried to pretend that he was just going away to camp for a while, just like rich kids do” (6). Stanley doesn’t have any friends and is teased at his middle school for being overweight. He was arrested for being “in the wrong place at the wrong time” (7). Stanley’s family has a joke about Stanley’s “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats (8).” They jokingly blame a curse placed on him for their family misfortunes. Even though Stanley’s father, an inventor, has the intelligence to make great things, he never has enough luck for his inventions to become successful. Despite his bad luck, Stanley’s father believes that not everyone in his family is doomed.
Stanley Yelnats is also the name of Stanley’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather—it is spelled the same frontward and backward. The first Stanley Yelnats had been robbed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow, an outlaw who could kill men with her kiss, but had been allowed to live.
At the end of the chapter, young Stanley arrives at Camp Green Lake where “hardly anything was green” (10).
Part 1, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters of the novel set up Stanley’s relationship with Camp Green Lake and hint at the mystery behind the camp’s name. Despite the name, Camp Green Lake is a “wasteland” (3), a description that foreshadows The Connection Between Past and the Present. The name tricks Stanley and his family into thinking that Camp Green Lake could be a pleasant alternative to a conventional juvenile detention facility. This also sets up names as an important motif of the story. The contrast between the name Camp Green Lake and its environment cues the reader to pay attention to the novel’s labels, which may not be an accurate indicator of the truth.
Throughout the novel, the idea of Fate Versus Free Will reoccurs. The Yelnatses’ lack of luck is not just due to their action but also to events that happened to their family generations ago, the result of a so-called curse. This makes Stanley feel like his conviction is out of his hands: his great-great-grandfather is the reason for his bad luck, just like all the bad luck that befalls the rest of his family. Although the apparently random events seem fated, they are the consequence of individual actions, and they have significance because of Stanley’s family history.
The past is important for Stanley to understand so he can comprehend his present. Young Stanley Yelnats, the novel’s main character, is connected to the Stanley Yelnatses of past generations. His name illustrates the strong influence of his familial history on the novel’s present-day actions.
The Importance of Friendship is also introduced as an important theme in the first chapters. When Stanley leaves for the camp, he has no friends. He is bullied because of his weight and his supposed family curse, which the kids claim came from a “gypsy.” This sets Stanley up to have a coming-of-age character arc. When he stops blaming others for his problems and takes responsibility for his life’s direction, he gains confidence and self-esteem. At this point in the novel, however, Stanley is stuck in his fatalistic mindset.
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