As one of my favorite tropes on TV Tropes is Fridge Brilliance, some works have better examples of Fridge Brilliance than others. While I will go over more about how it works later, one work that had an interesting page on that was the children’s book Holes, by Louis Sachar. The book also has a film adaptation where some parts were better than they were in the book (like the treasure of the Yelnats family being a treasure chest filled with stock certificates instead of a suitcase), but some parts in the book were better than they were in the movie. This book is hardly remembered in today’s age, but it does have some details that are worth sharing in today’s entry.
So here’s what the story is about. Stanley Yelnats IV was accused of stealing someone’s shoes and was thus sent to a prison camp where he has to dig up holes. His grandfather did not blame the bully that got Stanley in trouble or the kid who owned the shoes, but rather Elya Yelnats, his “no good dirty rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather” for breaking a promise he made for Madame Zeroni. His decision resulted in a curse on the entire Yelnats family, which is why everyone in the family faced misfortunes (like when the first Stanley Yelnats was robbed out of his entire wealth by Kissin’ Kate Barlow). While Stanley is at Camp Green Lake, he meets a kid named Zero, who nobody really liked and who his camp counselor kept mocking on. Stanley befriended him and tried to care for him. The story also has a backstory about Kate Barlow, an elementary school teacher who turned into a serial killer and killed people for their wealth. Same backstory was also why the drought over Green Lake started and why Camp Green Lake existed in the first place. Oh, and don’t forget about the yellow-spotted lizards. At least one character died because of a yellow-spotted lizard.
When I read about its page on Fridge Brilliance, I learned a lot of interesting things that only someone who thinks critically would pick up.
WARNING: There are spoilers below. If you are interested into reading the book or watching the movie Holes, but have not seen it, do not continue reading until you watch it. If you have seen it or don’t want to read/watch it, you may proceed further.
The Yelnats and the Walkers:
Both the Yelnats and the Walkers had the same situation. Their ancestors were rich, sought love, then were cursed by a woman, which driven their descendants to poverty. The reason why the Yelnats were better off than the Walkers were because of the severity of the actions done by the first ancestors, their will to take accountability, and the decisions they made.
- The sin made by Elya Yelnats was that he broke a promise he made for Madame Zeroni, where he will carry her up the mountain she couldn’t go up so she can get the water. By breaking the promise before leaving to America, he would’ve ruined her farm. And he stole one of her pigs all so he can marry some girl. As a result, she cursed the Yelnats family. Trout Walker, however, started a lynching riot against Sam, Kate Barlow’s love interest, all because he was rejected. He also burned down Kate’s school and killed Sam’s donkey, Mary Lou. Regardless of reason, lynching is one of the worst things you can do. Even if Trout singlehandedly killed Sam instead of lynching him, killing people was clearly worse than what Elya did. The fact that the act was racially motivated made it even worse. This is one reason why the curse of the Walkers was harsher than the curse of the Yelnats.
- Regarding accountability, Elya regretted what he did to Madame Zeroni, but Trout felt no remorse for what he did to Sam.
- The Yelnats were also willing to move on. Elya was able to move on from losing Myra to Igor and found real love. He was also willing to move on from his guilt. Trout, on the other hand, wasn’t willing to move on from Kate and her rejection. One way to show how he hasn’t moved on was that he married one of her students. The will to move on also extends to wealth, where Stanley Yelnats I moved on from being rich after Kate Barlow stole his wealth by finding other ways to make money. Trout was unwilling to move on from when he was rich and thus focused on digging up Kate’s treasure rather than finding more practical ways. The lesson is that you should move on from the past.
- The Yelnats also made practical decisions. They focused on innovation and working to make a decent living. They eventually made an invention that people took seriously, thus helping them out of poverty. The Walkers could’ve sought an education and get a better job. Instead, they did not, as they only focused on the treasure to the point where one of Trout’s grandchildren started a prison camp to find it.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Yelnats family remained to be nice despite everything going wrong with them, while each of the Walkers got worse each generation after. Additionally, Stanley Yelnats has shown courage by risking severe punishment (for stealing a water truck) and social ostracization (for befriending a constant target of bullying). And Louise Walker (the Warden) has mistreated her subjects so badly that she didn’t even care when Stanley and Zero got covered in yellow-spotted lizards. Here are their fates:
- Stanley was able to break the curse Madame Zeroni put on the family. Because of that, the bully that got Stanley in trouble got him out of trouble by hiring a lawyer, Stanley and Zero have found the treasure that belonged to the Yelnats family, the Yelnats became rich, the kid that accused Stanley of stealing his shoes became friends, and every prisoner in Camp Green Lake got freed.
- After that racist murder done by Trout, he was driven to poverty. He was unable to find Kate’s loot and died without finding it. And when the loot was finally found, The Warden was denied a look inside the chest. She was sent to jail for life, as her prison camp closed. And Trout Walker ultimately died in vain.
The Curse of the Yelnats:
While the curse inflicted on Elya Yelnats and his descendants was indeed harsh, Madame Zeroni somehow gave an escape clause and helped them find their path to breaking the curse. This is because Elya was the only person to be friends with her when everyone hated her. The curse was for breaking the promise, but the escape clause existed because he was friends. This has led to the following:
- While Kate Barlow killed nearly everyone that she robbed of their wealth, the one person she spared the life of was Stanley Yelnats I. If she killed him instead of leaving him to die in the desert, the curse will not pass on.
- The Yelnats were still able to find love and happiness, which is why they continued to have descendants. But they can never escape poverty until the curse is lifted.
- When Stanley Yelnats IV was sent to prison, one of the prisoners is a descendant of Madame Zeroni. She has possibly set up one of Elya’s descendants to eventually carry one of her descendants up the mountain.
- Even though the yellow-spotted lizards are repelled by onions, the fact neither Stanley nor Zero got bit by one can be seen as a karmic reward for returning a promise that Elya broken.
Just like Elya and Madame Zeroni, Stanley was the only one who cared for Zero. When he ran away, and others didn’t care that he might die in the desert, Stanley ran off to find him. When he did find him, he got him eating peaches to save him from dehydration, carried him up the mountain, and ate onions with him. He also taught him how to read back at Camp Green Lake. No other camper would’ve done this to him. He not only broke the curse by doing that, but Zero was able to return him a favor by digging up one last hole, which was where the treasure was found.
The Curse of the Walkers:
The curse of the Walker family wasn’t just supernatural, but also realistic. While we can’t consider divine retribution in reality, some of the actions that Trout did have realistic consequences.
- Let’s get started on the source of income. Because Trout was in control of the lake, he had a source of income that allowed him to get super rich. He felt that he didn’t need an education or get another job. The problem here is that his source of income is in a precarious position. He didn’t take into consideration that owning a lake is impractical during a time of a drought. He didn’t take into consideration that if Green Lake ever becomes a ghost town, nobody would use the lake. And Green Lake would become a ghost town if there are no other resources to depend upon. So when the lake dried up and the town became a ghost town, Trout has lost his source of income.
- As a rich man, Trout also wasted his money on luxuries rather than diversifying his budget. For as long as you have a source of income, you are free to spend as much as you want for as long as you’re not going over your budget. But if you have no source of income, your wealth is only going to go down. Since he wasn’t able to change his spending habits, and since he married someone who only married him just for the money, he lost his wealth as soon as he lost his source of income.
- As stated earlier, he could’ve sought an education or gotten another job. While he wouldn’t be rich like he used to be, he would be better off doing that instead of digging holes just to find the treasure. In reality, it’s not practical to make money using one-shot moves that would amass a lot of wealth (such as gambling). It would be better to get another job, which may pay less, but more consistently. This is exactly what the Yelnats were doing. While they weren’t getting rich, they were better off than the Walkers were, and it’s all because Trout focused on finding the treasure instead of more practical means of making more wealth.
- The Warden was no better either. While she did manage to find a better source of income (state subsidies), the problem with relying on the state is that if they ever have to cancel the contract for any reason, she will lose that source of income. And they did cancel the contract, and it’s because of the abuse she has done to her prisoners and the legal issues surrounding Zero.
This also applies to Green Lake as well, not just the Walker family. While the lake was a good resource, whatever Sam and Kate provided were beneficial to the community (education and agriculture). In reality, both education and agriculture, as well as innovations (like how Sam’s onions had multiple purposes) would’ve helped sustain long-term viability to any community. If you take that out of the equation, there’s no way a community can last. This is exactly what Trout did. By killing Sam and burning Kate’s school, he took out two resources that would’ve kept Green Lake alive.
Another thing to point out is that if there are no other industries to rely on after losing a primary resource, everyone who lived in the town would leave. This is similar to mining towns that depopulated completely because all of the ore from the towns were extracted. The lack of resources, as well as an act of evil (like the murder of Sam), would scare off any innovators from moving in. This is exactly what happened to Green Lake. Once the town dried up, there was no way to keep it alive.
Sam and Kate:
Sam the Onion Man and Kate Barlow weren’t just icons to Green Lake from when it lived. They also had many parallels to Stanley and Zero, as well as their ancestors.
First of all, their crops were beneficial to the protagonists. Kate not only ran a school, but she also grew peaches. Sam, as an onion farmer, primarily grown onions. Those two crops were the missing ingredients to an invention Stanley Yelnats III was making that people took seriously. Additionally, Kate’s peaches saved Stanley and Zero from dehydration, while Sam’s onions rendered them immune to the yellow-spotted lizards when they dug up the treasure belonging to Stanley Yelnats I. The onions also saved Stanley Yelnats I from dying in the desert.
As TV Tropes pointed out, both Sam and Zero had similarities to Madame Zeroni. One thing all three of them had in common were that they were outcasts. Madame Zeroni for being a mystic, Sam for being African-American during the Jim Crow Era, and Zero for being something that many believed were stupid. Sadly, only Zero got a happy ending, but at least Madame Zeroni and Sam won in the end. In Sam’s case, his onions saved the lives of Stanley and Zero and prevented them from being bit by yellow-spotted lizards. This allowed them to keep the treasure while the Warden wasn’t allowed a look into the chest. I also previously said that Trout, the one who killed Sam, died in vain. Therefore, Sam has ultimately won over him. For Madame Zeroni’s case, one of her descendants was carried up the mountain by one of Elya’s descendants. And the Yelnats shared their wealth with Zero and his mother.
Miscellaneous:
Even though TV Tropes’ Fridge Brilliance tends to overthink books and movies, here are some other things I learned by reading the Fridge page on Holes.
- The name of the book isn’t just about what the teenagers had to dig. It’s also describes what Kate Barlow had in her heart after Sam’s death.
- The Warden is actually more selfish than you think. She was mad at Stanley for teaching Zero how to read and for focusing on the same hole instead of digging other holes. For the former, this is exactly what Kate Barlow was like. She was a teacher, and she loved a black man. Stanley taught Zero (a black kid) how to read (education). Since Kate Barlow was the person who cursed the Warden’s family, history would’ve repeated. And she’s not wrong since it was Stanley and Zero that ultimately got her sent to jail. For the latter, if one really focused on the same hole instead of digging other holes, changes of finding Kate’s loot will go down.
- Before Sam’s death, the last time it rained in Green Lake was when he kissed Kate. The next time it rained was after the Warden, Mr. Sir, and Mr. Pendanski were arrested. The drought lasted over a hundred years (in reality, it wouldn’t have lasted that long due to the number of generations mentioned). While the book clearly shows that the rain didn’t come back until Sam got his justice, it’s also symbolic to show how society improved. While the Walkers continued to get worse, society has changed for the better. Texas in today’s day and age wouldn’t even tolerate discrimination, but they allowed a lynching to happen back in the 1800’s. So Green Lake was freed from a curse too, not just the Yelnats.
- The curses of the Yelnats and the Walkers can also explain why it was Stanley who discovered the treasure and not the Warden despite being on the Walkers’ land. For as long either family is cursed, neither of them could find the treasure. But since the Yelnats’ curse was lifted and the Walkers were under a permanent curse, Stanley was able to find the treasure.
- When Camp Green Lake was turned into a Girl Scout Camp, it can be seen as an insult to the Walker family. Trout is a misogynist, and the Warden did nothing to build character. The values of the Girl Scouts contradict all that. Moreover, Trout was the reason why Green Lake became a ghost town with no practical use, while the Girl Scout Camp could bring tourists to the land. Of course, the book and movie clearly made it an insult to Mr. Sir.
It’s rather interesting that one racist murder was the driving force of the entire story. If it weren’t for that, Green Lake wouldn’t have dried up, and Trout wouldn’t have lost his source of income. And it wouldn’t have been a big deal had he not been so greedy. It’s also interesting that, just like To Kill a Mockingbird, the racist monster that was or would’ve been the main antagonist was already unlikable before the crime, and it was the racists who got punished more dearly than their victims. But to summarize what today’s entry was about:
- The Yelnats and the Walkers had a similar situation, but the Yelnats did better because their actions weren’t as severe, were nicer, were able to move on, and made practical decisions.
- The curse of the Yelnats led the entire family to a path that would’ve ended the curse.
- The curse of the Walkers is realistic, not just supernatural.
- Sam and Kate had similarities and an impact of Stanley and Zero.
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