Holes, by Louis Sachaar
...stay there and dig holes. If he had stayed he would have left a couple of days earlier, but the curse would not have been lifted. The curse would have stayed because of who Zero was. Zero was a descendant of Madam Zeroni’s family. So when he carried him up the mountain and had him drink from the spring he lifted the curse. No curse would have happened if his ancestor had took Madam Zeroni up the mountain himself. On this mistake I believe the author wanted to change the reader’s view Stanley. I did not think Stanley would have really gone to save Zero. I mean from what I figured Stanley was a real coward and showed no signs of bravery, but to risk going out into a desert with no water he really showed that he was either really brave or really stupid. Now to tell you why I think the author had these two choices in mind. The first choice about it being for the reader to sympathize for the character is obvious. Now Stanley had chose to go home and pass under that freeway. You have to sympathize on the fact that the shoes just happened to hit him in the head and that afterwards he was convicted of theft. I think the only way you would not sympathize for a person who was wrongly judge was if you find it funny when something bad happens to a person. So it is clear that the author wanted the reader to sympathize for the Stanley. Now the next one was...