Holes: chapter 7 explained

https://prezi.com/bfeknbpngei0/holes/#

In chapter 7, there are two plots - two stories going on at the same time. In the main plot, there is Stanley, who has just come to Camp Green Lake. He has a hard time digging his first hole, because the ground is hard and he gets blisters on his hands. Mr Pendanski tells Stanley that if he finds anything interesting, he must tell a counselor because the Warden wants to know about interesting finds.

In the sub-plot (side story) we learn more about Stanley's family history. Stanley's great-great-grandfather (remember that our Stanley is called Stanley Yelnats IV; the fourth one in the family with that name) was from Latvia and his name was Elya Yelnats. When he was fifteen he fell in love with a pretty fourteen year old girl named Myra Menke. Elya wanted to marry Myra, but so did Igor Barkov, a fifty-seven year old pig farmer. Myra's father gets to decide which man is going to marry his daughter. Igor has a pig to offer, but Elya has only a heart full of love. He goes to his friend Madame Zeroni, an old Egyptian woman who gives him advice. She tells him not to marry Myra but to go to America instead. Though, this does not cheer Stanley up, so Myra offers to help him.


Madame Zeroni gives Elya a small pig to take care of. She teaches him a song and tells him that he must carry the pig up a mountain where there is a stream with water that runs uphill. He has to sing the song and let the pig drink from the water. If he does this every day, the pig will grow and Elya will get stronger. Madame Zeroni also makes Elya promise that he will carry her up the mountain and sing to her after he has shown the pig to Myra's father.
"Madame Zeroni warned that if he failed to do this, he and his descendants would be doomed for all eternity". = Madame Zeroni would put a curse on his family.

Elya carries the pig up the mountain every day and the pig gets bigger, except for on the day of Myra's fifteenth birthday, because Elya did not want to go to Myra smelling like a pig. Elya's pig ended up weighing the same as Igor's pig and Myra had to decide whom she wanted to marry. However, she could not really decide so Elya goes to America instead and forgot his promise to Madame Zeroni.

In America, Elya marries a woman who is strong and smart. He teaches his wife the song that Madame Zeroni taught him.
Elya and his wife have a son that they name Stanley, because as you remember Stanley is Yelnats backwards.

Even though they all work very hard, they have a lot of bad luck in their lives and Elya starts to believe that Madame Zeroni really cursed them.

... And that is why Stanley and his family blames his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather when things go wrong.