Holes — Chapter 40

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 40 as a braided narrative separated by a three-dot divider: the flashback to Sam, Mary Lou, Mrs. Tennyson, and Hattie Parker in old Green Lake, then the present-day sequence in which Stanley recovers at Big Thumb and descends to retrieve the shovel. Name what each movement contributes to the novel's moral architecture.

Discussion Questions

1. Sachar stages Chapter 40 as a braided narrative — a full flashback to Sam and the Tennysons in old Green Lake, a three-dot divider, and then Stanley's present-day descent for the shovel. Argue what the formal choice accomplishes that a chronologically continuous chapter could not. Consider the reader's work across the divider, the temporal claim the structure implies about moral goodness persisting in a landscape, and the role of the three dots as authorial notation.
2. Sam's repeated deflection of credit — first to 'the good Lord and Doc Hawthorn,' then to 'the onions,' and finally his redirection of Mrs. Tennyson's extra coin to Mary Lou — articulates a coherent philosophy of right relation to gratitude. Examine Sam's code. Is he offering a principle (credit follows cause), performing a virtue (humility), refusing a transaction (the saving as debt), or maintaining the dignity of a mule's labor? Defend a reading.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide