The essay below is a essay from a Year 9 student on the novel Holes. The question he answered on is the type of question that you may get in your exam.
Describe a character who changed during the text. Explain why this change occurred.
A character who changed in the novel “Holes” by Louis Sachar was Stanley. Over the course of the novel Stanley changed from being a boring, dull and ‘wimpy’ child to an interesting and ‘tough’ young man.
One of the main ways in which Stanley changed was that at the beginning he had “no friends” and was bullied frequently. This changed because of the fact that he eventually made friends with his camp mates. The bullying would have also stopped because by the time we got back to civilisation he was no longer “fat” which was the main reason he had be bullied.
Stanley’s home situation also changed when he left for “Camp Green Lake” his father was struggling to find a way to “recycle” old sneakers. His family also was reasonably poor at the start. By the end however Stanley’s dad with the help of the infamous “sploosh” was able to stop the sneakers smelling. Stanley also discovered a trunk of extremely valuable shares which belonged to his family. The fact that his family was now reasonably well off made Stanley more confident in himself and a more pleasant person to be around.
At the beginning of the novel Stanley was generally seen as being a bit of a ‘wimp’ he would always run rather then fight and would never do anything brave. However over his time at camp green Lake he developed and overcame his fears. He even did some fairly heroic stuff such as going into almost certain death in the desert to help his friend Zero, and braving wardens with guns and poisonous lizards to try and find a treasure. By the end at the novel there was no way he could still be seen as a wimp by anyone. Over the film Stanley changed in many ways and all seemed to be important, and for the better.
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