“Holes” shows the importance of friendship in times of trouble and danger. Discuss ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar is a phenomenal and superlative narrative. Entwining three remarkable stories from diverse generations and genres, Holes demonstrates immensely proficient writing dexterity, explicitly depicting the significance of earnest and genuine friendship in times of life’s trials and tribulations. This is exemplified when an averse and apprehensive Stanley and a despondent and barely conversant Zero develop a friendship. Founded on mutual solicitous understanding this friendship carries them through ominous and precarious times. Madame Zeroni and Elya Yelnats are two characters further used to demonstrate the ineffable importance of …show more content…
When Elya had seen Myra he fell profoundly in love with her, despite the fact that Myra was beautiful she was also extremely imprudent but nevertheless Elya refused to acknowledge this. Elya had nothing to offer in exchange for her hand and was exceedingly distressed. When Madame Zeroni heard Elya speak of his love for Myra she was infuriated but even more so when she heard of Elya’s nuptial plans. Madame Zeroni had great hopes for him, she yearned for him to go to America and make something of himself. She had told him “Like my son. That’s where your future lies. Not with Myra Menke.” (p.30) Irritated, Madame Zeroni strived vigorously to convince Elya against marriage to Myra “...can she milk a cow? No... Can she have an intelligent conversation? No... Can she look after you when you are sick? No......... She is silly and foolish...So she is beautiful, so what?”(p.30). Madame Zeroni was exceptionally aggravated, she didn’t stop there with the defamations, she even told him Myra’s head was ‘as empty as a flower pot,’ (p.29) but Myra’s futility was inconspicuous to Elya who was only fifteen, immature and naive. Madam Zeroni ostracized seeing Elya dejected and against her better judgement she decided to help him. She gave him a piglet and instructed him to carry the piglet up the mountain and sing to
In the novel, The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, two jewish families from different sects are brought together through the blossoming of a deep friendship between their two sons during the 1940s. It focuses on the emotional bonds forged between traditional Orthodox Jew Reuven Malter and Hasidim Danny Saunders, that last well through their childhood adventures of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York, and well into adult hood. It also follows their story of self discovery, parental acceptance, and how the boys attempt to fit into their modern ,popular American society as jews , all as World War 2 comes to a close. In their pursue of happiness, many problems are presented to them, which they eventually solve ,together, despite their differences. Reuven and Danny ,in Chaim Potok's ,The Chosen, manage to successfully create a beautiful friendship , aside from their different philosophical views, through perseverance, forgiveness, trustful communication, intimate listening and understanding, being supportive and present in times of need, and just setting aside their differences and accepting each other wholeheartedly.
Poverty and hardship are shown to create vulnerability in female characters, particularly the female servants, allowing powerful men to manipulate and sexually abuse them. Kent illustrates how poverty perpetuates maltreatment and abuse in a society like Burial Rites using the characters of Agnes’ mother Ingveldur and Agnes. Agnes’ mother is forced to make invidious choices as her children are “lugged along” from farm to farm, where she is sexually exploited by her employers. In spite of these circumstances, Agnes’ mother is commonly referred to as a whore in their society which abhors female promiscuity yet disregards male promiscuity as a harmless character trait; as in the case of Natan, who is merely “indiscreet” despite all his philandering. Born into poverty, Agnes experiences similar sexual coercion and manipulation from her “masters” and yet is labelled “a woman who is loose with her emotions and looser with her morals”. The severe poverty of Agnes is explicitly demonstrated to the reader by Kent through the intertextual reference of her entire belongings - a very dismal, piteous list to be “sold if a decent offer is presented”. Furthermore, Kent contrasts the situation of Agnes, a “landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty”, to the comparative security Steina has experienced using a rhetorical question from
The young sisters, who know little about their father’s suffering, make fun of the hole without knowing the consequence of their action. The father is unable to intervene on his daughters’ behalf, as he sits there “face paled.” (40), till the mother orders the children to keep quiet. Apparently, his role in the family structure prevents him from expressing his emotion directly to his children. Nevertheless, after a visit to the doctor, it turns out that the father’s internal organs are intact despite their state of severe deformation, which shows the father’s incredible determination to remain functional in his family role after his tragic loss. Ironically, the doctors “pronounced him in great health” (41), which implies that apparent defects in mental health could be suppressed by the father’s unwillingness to challenge his image as a man, thus they are not easily detectable. The father’s behavioral patterns after his father’s death are in accordance to many stereotypical views of men.
In the story “Caviar”, both husband Nathaniel and wife Marie suffer a loss of innocence. It is Nathaniel, however, that goes through the greatest degree of loss. He may have caused his wife's loss of innocence by having an affair with their surrogate, Wendy, but he lost so much himself. Marie though having lost a husband, got the child she had so desperately wanted. Nathaniel was left with nothing as he lost his wife, his mistress, and his new born son.
In this essay I intend to look at why the book ‘Holes’, is a good
In “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, social media has significantly changed the way we interact with friends and family. Everybody thinks that using social media is the best way to talk to friends and family, however, in my opinion, they are wrong because it doesn’t give you the face-to-face connections we need as humans for social interaction. On the other hand, the great thing about using social media is you can connect with more people, but in a superficial kind of way. Therefore, we do not get the face-to-face interactions with our friends and family. We, the people that are addicted to social media, learn that without face-to-face conversations we wouldn’t have a normal “social” life outside of social media. The question
trying to impress boys, marrying at a young age was not the Esperanza she wanted to be. She
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.
In the early days, the role of woman has been confined by a man because their jobs are to get marry, have children, and most depend on their husbands. The men in the early society had bigger roles than women. Therefore, women has to base themselves on and listen to their men. However, in the story “Once Aboard The Lugger,” author Thomeas Qiller- couch presents an intense image of a woman who makes change in woman’s role in the early society. Nance Trewartha, a daughter of a fisherman in Ruan, wants to marry a minister Samuel from Troy. She has fond on him and starts to wonder how would be like if Samuel is her husband. With her lovingness and braveness, she kidnaps Samuel and start to reverse a women role in the courtship. Surprisingly, Nance pursues Samuel by isolating him, and she changes the patterns of courtship, culture, and class.
Friendship is one of the most important relationships that people form in all of their lives. Children build bonds when they are young and use those skills to continue fulfilling friendships for the rest of their lives. Throughout A Separate Peace, John Knowles displays the good things about close friendships but also the hardships that often occur. Gene and Finny are two boys that attend Devon school. Which is a school that closely reflects the one that Knowles attended while he was growing up. Both Gene and Finny emotionally grow despite their opposite personalities, and they go through several situations that force them to consider the value of their friendship. Through their time at the school, Knowles reveals Gene’s and Finny’s
During the eighteenth century, marriage was a representation of not only the unity between man and women but it was also a representation of a woman taking a servile, less meaningful role in the household. Once married, women were expected to be completely submissive to their husbands. This was the norm across Europe and even in enlightened society. These relationships were hierarchical. It was not customary for women to attend schools that educated men the math and sciences. Women holding privileged positons in society traditionally allotted to men were seen as the exception. Yet these exceptions did not generally bother society because they did not lead to certain conclusion that women could do anything. In Gotthold Lessing’s novel “Nathan the Wise” and Francoise de Graffigny’s “Letters from a Peruvian Woman”, both authors upset traditional expectations about what constitutes a novel’s happy ending by refusing to end either of their novels with weddings. In Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise”, the rejection of marriage plot reflects a larger symbolic representation of religious tolerance. While in Graffigny’s novel “Letters from a Peruvian Woman”, the rejection of marriage plots illustrates a woman whose circumstances would make her the exception. Zilia, Graffigny’s main character, was an enlightened woman who chose sovereignty over servitude. Therefore, I would argue that the intentions behind both Lessing and Graffigny’s rejection of the marriage plot was not to serve the same
The main character's name is Stanley Yelnats. At first, you see stanley as an alright kid who has made a bad decision stealing. “ I stole some sneakers” (pg 22). Throughout the rest of the story you find that stanley is nice and always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time all thanks to his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather” (Pg 7). At school before camp Green Lake he was bullied and treated bad. “he didn’t have any friends at home, he was overweight” (pg 7). At camp Green Lake Stanley made a new friend, his best friend “Zero”. He get’s along great with Zero and teaches him how to read. “I’ll try
When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the
The statements made by C.S. Lewis can easily be agreed with or refuted. The idea that friendship “gives value to survival” is agreeable with because it is not vital to your physical health. However, your physical health can be affected by your mental or emotional health. Having no friends could lead to falling into a state of depression; depression often leads to self-harm or in some cases, suicide. Mental problems can occur through the lack of friendship as well. People can acquire mental illnesses such as schizophrenia which can compensate for the lack of people in your life.
When we think back on the mistakes we have made in life did any of them have a good outcome? For young Stanley Yelnats in Holes by Louis Sachar, a mistake turned his life around. The mistake put him in a bad place, but by the end of the story he had actually ended up with many good outcomes. Stanley benefitted from many things from the mistake made by Hector Zeroni. Stanley made a friend, received/ found a treasure, and also bettered himself as a person. Even though he got pulled into a mess he did not let it destroy him as a person. He strived to better himself and those around him. In the beginning of the story Stanley is a timid, bigger built, loving, and caring boy; but as the story progresses he begins to change. Stanley’s personality