Holes

Holes

by

Louis Sachar

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Holes makes teaching easy.
Sam is the black onion seller in 1880s Green Lake. He touts the healing powers of onions, citing his donkey Mary Lou as evidence: he claims that she's nearly 50 and never gets sick because she eats only onions. Nobody is sure if they can believe him, given that Sam himself is only twenty. Aside from selling onions, Sam also makes a number of tinctures and ointments out of onions meant to cure all manner of illnesses and ailments. Even Doc Hawthorn uses Sam's cream to cure balding. Sam is gregarious and appears to be loved by all. He and Miss Katherine form a friendship and then a romance when he offers to fix the dilapidated schoolhouse for her. When there's no more to fix at the schoolhouse, Sam kisses Katherine in the rain, insisting it will fix her breaking heart. However, because Sam is African-American, the kiss is illegal and the townsfolk riot. Sam and Katherine attempt to escape across the lake to Sam's secret onion fields, but Trout Walker's motorized boat is inescapable. Trout shoots Sam in the water, which puts a curse on Green Lake: no rain falls until Stanley and Hector, 110 years later, set things right. Katherine tries to avenge Sam's death by killing the sheriff, who wanted to hang Sam.

Sam Quotes in Holes

The Holes quotes below are all either spoken by Sam or refer to Sam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fate and Destiny Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 26 Quotes

Miss Katherine jerked her hand free. As she hurried to the door, she heard the sheriff say, "The law will punish Sam. And God will punish you."

Related Characters: The Sheriff (speaker), Miss Katherine/Kissin' Kate Barlow, Sam, Charles "Trout" Walker
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:

These are the facts:

The Walker boat smashed into Sam's boat. Sam was shot and killed in the water. Katherine Barlow was rescued against her wishes. When they returned to the shore, she saw Mary Lou's body lying on the ground. The donkey had been shot in the head.

That all happened one hundred and ten years ago. Since then, not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake.

You make the decision: Whom did God punish?

Related Characters: Miss Katherine/Kissin' Kate Barlow, Sam, Charles "Trout" Walker, The Sheriff
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Holes LitChart as a printable PDF.
Holes PDF

Sam Quotes in Holes

The Holes quotes below are all either spoken by Sam or refer to Sam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fate and Destiny Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 26 Quotes

Miss Katherine jerked her hand free. As she hurried to the door, she heard the sheriff say, "The law will punish Sam. And God will punish you."

Related Characters: The Sheriff (speaker), Miss Katherine/Kissin' Kate Barlow, Sam, Charles "Trout" Walker
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:

These are the facts:

The Walker boat smashed into Sam's boat. Sam was shot and killed in the water. Katherine Barlow was rescued against her wishes. When they returned to the shore, she saw Mary Lou's body lying on the ground. The donkey had been shot in the head.

That all happened one hundred and ten years ago. Since then, not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake.

You make the decision: Whom did God punish?

Related Characters: Miss Katherine/Kissin' Kate Barlow, Sam, Charles "Trout" Walker, The Sheriff
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis: