Holes — Chapter 40

About This Passage

This is the paragraph in which the novel quietly admits that the ordinary accounting of the physical world is not going to cover what has happened. Sachar refuses to explain how the shovel and sack came to be placed together in the weeds; instead he reports the evidence — jars unbroken, 'side by side' — and then gives the reader one word: amazed. Imitating this paragraph trains the student in how a writer builds a mystery out of observation rather than out of commentary, and in how 'amazed' can do more work than any explanatory sentence the author could have written.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 40 as a braided narrative separated by the three-dot divider. First narrate the flashback to Sam, Mary Lou, Mrs. Tennyson, and Hattie Parker in old Green Lake. Then narrate the present-day scene with Stanley at Big Thumb, his descent for the shovel, and the unexplained discovery. Name, for each movement, what it contributes to the novel's moral architecture.

Discussion Questions

1. The chapter deploys a braided structure — a full flashback to Sam and the Tennysons in old Green Lake, a three-dot break, and then Stanley's present-day descent for the shovel. Argue what the formal choice accomplishes that a chronologically continuous chapter could not. Consider temporality, moral resonance, and the reader's work across the gap.
2. Sam's repeated deflection — 'It wasn't me. It was the onions' — and his refusal of Mrs. Tennyson's coin frame a philosophy of right relation to gratitude. Examine the ethics of Sam's code. Is he articulating a principle (credit follows cause), performing humility (a moral virtue), or refusing a transaction that would convert the act of saving Becca into a debt? Defend a reading.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide