Hatchet Essay Weapons, Shelter, and Fire. Are all crucial things needed to survive in Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. In Hatchet a thirteen year old boy flies with a pilot to see his dad in canada. His name is Brian Robeson Brian is a city boy he is coming all the way from Hampton, New York. The first time Brian shows survival is when he first crashed the plane and fell asleep and woke up no one knows how long he was asleep but, he woke up and says I need a shelter and he says”I need to look for a good place for a lean to.”[Paulsen 53] The reason he is, looking for a good spot is Brian has a flashback of him and Terry his friend who shows him a lot of things about survival. This is important because what Brian is doing is showing survival skills.
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, The boys have just landed on the island are have gathered together. They talk about what they need to survive and how they will be rescued, when the meeting comes to an end Ralph mentions that, “there’s another thing. [They] can help them find [them]. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice [them]. So [they] must make smoke on top of the mountain. [They] must make a fire” (Golding 38). In the quote, the first assembly is happening right after the crash. They all group together and decide what their priorities are so they can get rescued. They all decided that they need fire, shelters, and food. It is in this very quote that survival is what drives one’s decisions because even after a plane crash, the surviving boys gather up and decide what they need to survive with. No matter what has happened, they all had the will to overpower the traumatic experience and decide and act upon their decisions. Along the same lines, in the movie, Castaway, Chuck Noland also demonstrates that survival is what influence one’s decisions. In movie Castaway, Chuck is seen doing many things that show how the will to survive impacts his decisions and actions. This is demonstrated when it is his first few days on the island, he
Brian quickly made a fire using small pieces of bark that caught fire really fast. He now had warmth and a shelter, the only he needed was a steady food supply.
First, Hatchet takes place in the vast Canadian wilderness and is told in third person, because the narrator talks about what Brian is thinking and saying. The protagonist is Brian, since he is the only main character in the book and the event that pushes the story forward is the divorce of Brian’s parents.
Hatchet by Gary Paulson is a fiction novel about a thirteen-year-old boy named Brian that survives a plane crash after the pilot dies of a heart attack and Brian is forced to land the plane himself, and in doing so, lands in a lake around the setting of a Canadian forest. Throughout the duration of the novel, Brian is to survive this dangerous situation with nothing except for a literal hatchet that was gifted to him by his mother prior to getting on the plane to go visit his father in the Canadian North Woods as his parents are newly separated after a recent divorce. Gary Paulsen was inspired to write Hatchet from his own life and personal experiences as both of his parents gave him a hard time growing up through their rocky marriage and unstable parenting as well as the fact that he grew up in the country and had to provide for himself. Hatchet also received a 1988 Newbery Honor award for its excellency. The fiction book is a piece of his life and it’s struggles as he wrote it to convey the following opinions: positivity can get you far no matter what the situation at hand may be, man can
Gary Paulsen: A Life of Adventure and Survival Gary Paulsen’s whole life reflects his life of adventures and survival in the wilderness, and his writing reflects his experiences. Living in the remote Minnesota woods, Paulsen released Some Birds Don't Fly in 1966 (Trelease). He began his professional writing career and has now achieved three Newbery Honor Books with his novels - Hatchet, The Winter Room and Dogsong (Pendergast). Paulsen’s most popular book, Hatchet, a story of a young boy named Brian who lands a plane after the pilot dies from a heart attack and must survive in the remote wilderness alone, reflects some of Paulsen’s real life experiences when he used to answer emergency calls and deal with many heart attack victims (Paulsen 2). The plane crash in Hatchet was also created by Paulsen after he was on the scene of a plane crash where the pilots died (Paulsen 7).
When the pilot found him, the old Brian would have not been very patient to get on the plane and go home, but now he is kind and patient, because I think he realizes that the pilot has probably just saved his life, and he really owes the pilot. In chapter 19, the text says “He looked at the pilot and the plane, and down at himself - dirty and ragged, burned and lean and tough - and he coughed to clear his throat. ‘My name is Brian Robeson,’ he said. Then he saw that his stew was done, the peach whip almost done, and he waved to it with his hand. ‘Would you like something to eat?’” This quote really shows that he has grown as a person and has gained kindness and patience. Before this experience, he would’ve not said anything and just got on the plane and whined to go home. Now, he is inviting him to eat, showing that he is waiting, so he is more patient, and by offering the pilot something it shows that he is
Brian’s trip is very unexpectedly interrupted, when the plane’s pilot has a heart attack. Brian tries to continue the flight, with help from men over the radio. Unfortunately, the radio dies, and the plane runs out of gas. I think this part of the story, is very unrealistic. If the plane were supposed to make it all the way to the destination, why would it suddenly run out of gas? Also, why would the radios suddenly become broken? I realize this was the whole point of the novel but it doesn’t seem realistic. Brian then spends exactly Fifty-four days by an L-shaped lake. He faces many conflicts. He is put in a situation like the “Survivor” television show. He needs to find a way to survive, unlike on the show, by himself. He needed protection from the weather, so he built shelter. He was hungry, so he hunted for food. He discovered how to catch fish, rabbit, and discovered bushes of nuts. He also had a bad encounter with “Poison berries,” as he called them, which made his stomach sick. Brian also had encounters with wild animals, such as, a porcupine, and a moose. Brian needed warmth, so he made fire, without any matches.
Main Theme: The story Hatchet’s theme is determination, perseverance and survival. Brian Robeson, whose parents are divorced, flies to visit his father in Canadian wilderness. His pilot has a heart attack and dies. Brian managed to land the plane in a lake, and escape unharmed. Now comes the hard part, surviving in the wilderness until rescued. He does have one tool to help him, a hatchet that his mother had given him as a gift. He will have to use it, his own determination, imagination, perseverance and common sense to survive.
This book is about a boy named Brian Roberson who gets stuck in the wilderness when his plane crash-lands because the pilot has a heart attack. It all started when Brian's parents had a divorce. He was sent away on a plane by his mother because it was summertime when his dad had custody. The parting gift his mother gave him was a hatchet. He wore the hatchet on a belt. When he left on the private little Cessna 406 plane in the copilot's seat he never could imagine how this little trip would change his life. In the airplane he thought a lot about his parents and the secret he kept. The secret was that he knew that his mom was having an affair with another man when she was still married to his father. Brian was thinking this until the pilot interrupted his thoughts and asked him if he has ever been in a copilot's seat before. He answered by saying that he has never been on an airplane. The pilot showed Brian how to fly the airplane by letting him fly for a !
The pilot remarks on some pain in his shoulder as Brian once again recalls the details of the divorce. Brian's father knows that his mother wants a divorce, but his father has no idea why nor does he favor the split. The court has decided that Brian will live with his mother during the school year and with his father during the summer. The plane jerks, awakening Brian from his thoughts. He notices the smell of body gas in the plane and assumes the pilot had a stomachache. He also seems to be experiencing increasing pains in his shoulder and arm. The divorce one month behind him, Brian is heading north to visit his father and to bring him some special equipment from New York. A mechanical engineer, his father has perfected a new drill bit for oil drilling. Brian recalls the long ride from the city to Hampton to meet the plane, during which Brian's mother had tried to convince him to tell her what was wrong, but he felt he could not tell her that he knew "the secret." When they had arrived in Hampton, his mother gave him a hatchet to use in the woods during the summer. Sensing that his mother felt particularly vulnerable, Brian had humored her by attaching the hatchet to his belt, where remained for the duration of the plane ride.
A major lesson that Brian learned during his time in the wilderness is to prevent simple mistakes and if it's inevitable then learn everything you can. In Hatchet Brian wakes up to a skunk trying to steal all of his food, Brian is alarmed because it's one of his only valuable sources of food. When Brian sees the skunk trying to get all of his food he gets startled and throws sand at it, but this just enrages the skunk, and then the skunk sprays Brian. It was a very simple mistake but the skunk only has one drive, survival, and that means
Gary Paulsen was a medic that experienced many tragedies. While he was on his free time he made books for kids to read. While Gary was a medic, he “answered many calls to highway wrecks, farm accidents, poisonings, gunshot accidents, and many, many heart attacks” (Gary) All of these impacts affected him in many ways. Gary Paulsen had a lot of experiences with people dying from heart attacks. Gary experienced a heart attack victim dying while the victim was looking right into Gary’s eyes as he passed away. This tragedy led up to him to write Hatchet. The book Hatchet was written because despite all of his tragedies he experienced that this was the first time seeing someone die in his own hands. These and other impacts on his life made him the famous writer he is
Finally, In Guts the writer of Hatchet Gary Paulsen talks about how he faces catastrophic things in his life. Before he was able
When Brian wakes up, he is overcome with dread. His body aches and his mind is cloudy, but he remembers where he is and his instincts take over. He builds a shelter, and as he settles down for the night he realizes that he is not the only one living in the woods. A porcupine comes into his shelter and attacks him in the middle of the night, leaving its quills in his lower leg, and Brian in extreme pain. His experience that night, though it helped him discover how to make a fire, left him scarred and his will broken. On another day, Brian finds a berry bush, and is overjoyed to find such readily available food, until he eats too many of them and finds that they upset his stomach extremely. This demonstrates his trouble finding food and surviving in the woods.