Major themes in Holes include the consequence of choices resulting from fate and destiny and the importance of friendship. Sachar never sets out to teach a specific moral or lesson when he writes. Instead, he creates characters that his readers can empathize with and involves them in plots that are fun to read. As a result, he believes his readers will naturally become better people.
Throughout the novel, fate, which is a power or force that is thought to decide future events, is a major theme. Stanley and his father have always had bad luck. They are sure their bad luck can be attributed to the curse that Madame Zeroni put on Stanley's great-great-grandfather and future generations of Yelnats after he broke his promise to her. Stanley and his father expect to have bad luck. When Clyde Livingston's sneakers "fell from the sky," Stanley was sure the sneakers were a "sign." He thought they were "like a gift from God" and might be the "key to his father's invention." Stanley believes he is "holding destiny's shoes."
Even though Stanley is arrested, the consequence of his choice to run home with the sneakers is determined by fate. Stanley is wrongly accused of stealing Clyde Livingston's sneakers and chooses to go to Camp Green Lake instead of jail. He finds a lipstick tube while digging his hole in the desert at Camp Green Lake and figures out that it belonged to Kissin' Kate Barlow, who just happened to have robbed his great-grandfather as he traveled West on a stagecoach with the fortune he'd made on the stock market. He was stranded in the Texas desert. Green Lake dried up and the community ceased to exist after a drought cursed Green Lake (Green Lake was cursed after Sam the Onion Man was killed and Katherine Barlow's school was destroyed). Stanley's great-grandfather survived finding "refuge on God's thumb." Nobody ever understood what he meant until Stanley sees a mountain in the distance while he is digging a hole, which resembles a fist and a thumb.
