Holes — Chapter 33

About This Passage

This is one of the most politically revealing paragraphs in the novel. Sachar uses the LANDSCAPE itself to tell us who the Warden really is. Near camp — where people can see her — she is 'systematic.' Far from camp — where no one is watching — she is random, frustrated, profane ('What the hell'). The ground itself has become a polygraph test of her private character. The reader learns about power what political philosophers from Plato to Hannah Arendt have taught: surveillance changes behavior. The Warden's public self is performance; her private self is temper.

Narration Prompt

Summarize Chapter 33. Begin with Stanley slowing to a walk and recognizing that pursuit has lapsed. Trace his deliberative arc: the halfway plan, the decision to search for Zero, his refusal to name the search even privately, the sociological observation about the randomness of the far-desert holes, the terrifying encounter with the yellow-spotted lizards, the flight and collapse, and the closing discovery — an abandoned sunflower-seed sack containing a single seed that he names 'Lunch.'

Discussion Questions

1. Consider Sachar's description of the chaotic, non-systematic holes far from camp as the product of the Warden's 'fits of frustration.' What argument is the chapter making about the relationship between surveillance and ethical behavior? Why is the landscape itself a more trustworthy witness to the Warden's character than her official conduct at camp?
2. Stanley 'didn't admit to himself what he was looking for' as he peered into hole after hole. Analyze the psychology of this deliberate self-opacity. Why would a person refuse to articulate a hope that nonetheless governs their actions? What does the unnamed search tell us about the weight of hope when the thing hoped for might also be dreaded?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide