Stanley Yelnats

The peaceful boy

The main character of the novel Holes by Louis Sachar is 14-year-old Stanley Yelnats IV. He is an overweight, tall boy who is constantly teased at school for being overweight. Therefore, he does not have a single friend because everyone prefers to make fun of him (Part 1, 3%), the "heaviest kid" (Part 1, 3%).

One of his classmates, Derrick Dune, is particularly hard on him and constantly torments and humiliates Stanley. Because Stanley looks so big and strong, however, no teacher believes him that he cannot defend himself against his adversaries (Part 1, 17%). Stanley, however, is far too peaceful, gentle, and shy to defend himself.

Stanley is optimistic but unlucky Stanley grows up in a very special family, one in which the male descendants are constantly dogged by bad luck. Because his great-great-grandfather Elya Yelnats broke a promise to an old friend, his entire family was cursed, the effects of which continue to the present day.

Stanley's father, Stanley Yelnats III, is an imaginative but unfortunately unsuccessful inventor who is currently working on a recycling process for used sneakers. That's why Stanley's parents can only afford a very tiny apartment that stinks of "burning rubber and foot odor" (Part 1, 5%). But despite the constant streak of bad luck, the Yelnats family never gives up hope (Part 1, 5%).

Stanley's streak of bad luck reaches its peak when he is wrongfully arrested for allegedly stealing a pair of sneakers. They simply fell on his head one day while he was passing through an underpass. Stanley is an optimist who believes in luck, so he thought that the shoes were "the key to his father's invention" (Part 1, 18%). He could not have known that the shoes belonged to the famous baseball player Clyde Livingston and had previously been stolen from a home for street children.

Trial, verdict and punishment

Since his family ca...