Film Analysis-Holes - Essay Example

The Warden assigns the daily chore of digging holes five feet deep, in the dry lake on a daily basis. She dominates everyone involved in the camp, inflicting pain on the assistant warden and threatening the patient counselor, Pendanski. It is evident that she is in control of her surroundings and those she interacts with. The empty lipstick tube with the initials KB, found by one of the boys during their daily digging of the holes, appears to hold special meaning for the warden. After the tube is brought to her, the warden becomes seemingly more powerful, inflicting her wounds and passing judgment on the others, with the exception of Stanley.

The lipstick tube represents feminine control, power and intuition. The tube bears the initials of ‘Kissin Kate.’ This is a woman who, one hundred years prior, predicted doom for the people of Green Lake, after they killed a black man, Sam, for sharing a kiss with her. Katherine Barlow’s prediction of “punishment 2 from God” (Davis) does occur as the lake dries up and all vegetation disappears. The lipstick tubes seems to almost transfer the feminine intuitive powers from Kissin Kate to the warden.

She seems to favor Stanley, as if she knows he is not the criminal he is reported to be, almost as if she knows the other boy took the case from Stanley to earn favor with her. Her special sense about Stanley is similar to that of Kate, about Sam. In both Green Lake settings, it is the women who possess the control and power, or matriarchic determinism.