Holes — Chapter 17

About This Passage

This passage is the moment in Chapter 17 where the reader realizes the Warden is willing to hurt her own campers. Armpit has simply come back from a bathroom break, but the Warden's patience has been breaking down for days because nothing has been found where X-Ray claimed to find the gold tube. She uses her pitchfork — a sharp tool meant for dirt, not people — as a weapon, then immediately turns around and tells Mr. Pendanski to give the boys LESS water. Copying this passage forces a reader to sit with how quickly a person in power can move from words to physical violence, and how the punishment after the violence (less water in the desert) is its own kind of cruelty.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 17 in your own words. Begin with the boys digging for a week and a half in the area X-Ray had pointed to, then the Warden's patience running out, then the pitchfork moment with Armpit, then the boys' three separate holes becoming one big hole, then Zigzag's shovel hitting Stanley in the head, then Zigzag's strange claim about whose dirt is whose, then Mr. Sir's sunflower-seed-sack bandage, and finally Stanley returning to the hole dizzy and being told to scoop up his own dirt again.

Discussion Questions

1. What in the text tells you that the Warden's anger is no longer just about the boys digging too slowly — that it is also about her own plan not working the way she expected?
2. The chapter says the three boys' holes had become one big hole by the fourth day. What does this detail tell you about how the camp has changed — for the boys' safety, and for the Warden's control?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide