Time

Time is an important concept in the novel Holes by Louis Sachar . The novel artistically traces how the past exerts a direct influence on the present and is connected to it in an irrevocable way. These aspects are explained in more detail in the sections "Chronology of the frame narrative" and "The mingling of past and present."

Narrative time and narrated time

Narrative time describes the reading time of a story, that is, how long it takes the reader to read the story. Narrated time, on the other hand, refers to the period of time covered by the story's content and plot. Three basic relationships are distinguished between narrative time and narrated time.

In time lapse, the narrative time is much shorter than the narrated time, so that a large period of content can be covered in what is only a short reading time for the reader. Time stretching is the exact opposite: Here, the narrative time is significantly longer than the narrated time. In time-covering narration, the narrative time is as long as the narrated time. Dialogues, for example, are always time-covering.

The novel Holes is largely told in a time-lapse manner. The narrative time, meaning the reading time, is just under three hours, but the novel already covers a good two months in the first two parts of its narrative time. The l...