An Allegory of Environmental Destruction and the Possibility of Environmental Restoration in Holes

This research aims to understand Louis Sachar’s Holes from an environmental perspective. The possibility of environmental approach to the work can be seen even with its first sentence: “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.” The following development of its plot demonstrates how the Camp has lost its ‘lake’ and ‘green’ unlike its name. The protagonist, Stanley, achieves his growth along with his painful experiences in this vast inhospitable desert. His growth through the hard work of digging holes there is inextricably related to the excavation of the buried history of Sam, who was shot and buried in the lake as a racial Other after kissing Katherine. Significantly, it was immediately after his death that “not one drop of rain” fell on the lake, which turned the beautiful lake and community into a barren wasteland. It is suggested that God’s punishment was brought about by the ‘unnatural’ tyranny of man-made racism. Provided that Stanley’s growth can be regarded in relation to his contribution to the restoration of Zero as “nobody” into a true companion as well as the discovery of Sam’s past, it can be meaningfully noted that Stanley’s growth leads not only to the restoration of the racial Other but also to the environmental restoration of the wasteland into Green Lake in its true sense. In this way, close relationships between a human community and the environment as an ecosystem are allegorically and aptly illustrated in Holes.