In the story Holes by Louis Sachar the main character is Stanley Yelnats. He goes to a camp called Green Lake because he has been convicted for a crime, which he was actually innocent for. At Camp Green Lake he meets other kids, councellors and the warden of the camp. After a while Stanley makes new friends. He gets along well with the counsellors and kids. At camp they have to work hard and dig holes all day long to build character. As the warden gets stricter to the kids, they also find out that they are actually digging holes because they are looking for a secret hidden treasure. In the beginning of the story Stanley is a non-confident boy, who doesn’t care about people teasing him. Throughout the story changes occur in Stanley. He makes friends and becomes braver.
In the beginning of the novel Stanley is a very lonely boy, who gets teased at school. He doesn’t trust himself nor have any friends. He doesn’t seem to care about himself, nor that others are teasing him. “He was overweight and kids at school often teased him about his size” pg. (7) Stanley never stood up for himself and said that he didn’t like to be teased. He wasn’t brave enough to say ‘stop this is enough, I don’t want this anymore’. “He was glad they called him Caveman. It meant they accepted him as a member of the group. He would have been glad if they’d called him Barf Bag” pg. (53, 54) Stanley didn’t care what name he got. They only thing that mattered to him was to get in or be in the group like every one else.
Stanley starts to change now when he has friends, because he feels like somebody cares about him, he is not feeling invisible any more. At that time he starts getting brave because he has trust in himself and he knows that people like him. It’s almost like he gets power from that. Stanley had Mr. Sir’s sack of sunflower seeds in his hole even though he wasn´t the one to steal it. The sack was there because he wanted to protect the others so he took the blame of stealing the sack. “So tell me Caveman said Mr. Sir. How did my sack of sunflower seeds get in your hole? I stole it from your truck said Stanley” pg. (86) Stanley is becoming brave because he has friends and he is one of them now. Therefore he feels like he can stand up and take the blame on himself, now when he feels comfortable.
He is getting ready to drive the truck, so he can find his friend Zero. However he is not so sure if he should steal it or not? “It’s too late he said to himself. Zero couldn’t have survived. But what if it wasn’t too late? He took another deep breath. Think about this, he told himself, but there wasn’t time to think. He flung open the door to the truck an climbed quickly inside” pg. (147) Stanley carried the braveness with him while trying to rescue Zero, even though he was scared and worried about getting caught as he fled from camp.
At the end Stanley has friends and helps others out. Now he is confident and proud of his achievements. Stanley is leaving camp with his lawyer. Stanley doesn’t want to leave camp without Zero coming with him. Stanley knows that Zero isn’t going to survive. “They will kill him,” said Stanley pg. (219) Stanley is saying what he really wants. He can stand up for his own thoughts and speech without changing it even though others don´t think he is right. He would never leave his best friend Zero behind, even if he had to die for him.
The warden is lying about Stanley taking the suitcase from her cabin, and that it belongs to her and not Stanley. “That’s not true” Stanley said.” Stanley is self-confident because he is not going to let the warden lie. Stanley knows what he has done and not done. He isn’t letting the warden taking over or lie about something Stanley hasn’t done. He stands up for what he has done even though it might be the wrong thing he chooses to do.
In the beginning of the story, Stanley is a lonely and non-confident boy, as he comes to Camp Green Lake because he has done a crime. He makes friends and starts to get brave. The braveness comes from having his friends by his side all the time. As the story goes on he gets to know everyone and turns out to be self-confident and also helping the other campers with their problems. Now he is self-confident for the first time in his life.
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