SparkNotes - Hatchet

2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing

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Gary Paulsen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1939. Although Gary Paulsen was a poor student with little motivation, one particular incident changed his life forever. When he stopped in at a library to warm up on a cold day, the librarian gave him a library card and a book. Initially reluctant, Paulsen soon took to reading with enormous enthusiasm, and became an avid reader.

At age fourteen, after a difficult childhood living with his alcoholic parents, he ran away from home. He traveled with a carnival, which invested him with a sense of adventure he has maintained for his whole life. He also held of wide range of odd jobs to support himself during this time and to enable him to pursue his writing career on the side. These jobs included teacher, electronic field engineer, construction worker, sailor, actor, director, satellite technician, rancher, and singer. He was in the army from 1958 to 1962. He also twice completed the Iditarod, the 1,180-mile Alaskan dog sled race. Once he realized he wanted to take his career as a writer seriously, he got a job as a magazine editor to gain some experience in the publishing world. In 1966 Paulsen published The Special War, his first novel. Gary Paulsen has written more than forty books, 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, primarily for young adults. Hatchet was published well into his career, after he had achieved a certain degree of success, and he enjoyed much popular and critical success. Gary Paulsen's life experiences have heavily influenced his writing. His early difficulties with his family, as well as his love for and struggles with nature, become central themes in Hatchet and in most of his works.

In addition to personal factors influencing Paulsen's work, the literary culture of his time also shaped the content and mood of his work. Around the same time that Paulsen emerged into the literary world, three books were published that dealt with the author's personal relationship with the natural world. Each book sought to combine autobiography and fiction in order to search for meaning and a rethought system of values out in the natural world. Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motocycle Maintenance, and Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It all revolved around similar themes. Paulsen adapted these themes to a young adult audience and added his own personal elements as well. These themes were not exclusive to the literary world. In the 1970s a strong cultural force called people back to the land, and Paulsen's books are partially a product of this outlook.

Brian Robeson, a thirteen-year-old from New York City, boards a plan headed from Hampton, New York to the Canadian north woods to visit his father. His parents' recent divorce weighs heavily on him, as does "The Secret" that his mother is having an affair. The pilot gives him a very brief flying lesson in which Brian has control of the plane for a few minutes. The pilot seems to be experiencing increasing pain in his shoulder, arm, and stomach. At first Brian does not think it is very serious, but as the pilot begins jerking in his seat it becomes clear that he is having a heart attack. The attack stops and the pilot is dead; Brian is forced to take over the controls. After a harrowing descent, the plane crashes into a lake in the Canadian woods, where Brian is stranded.

Brian has little to eat and is injured from the crash, but believes he will soon be rescued. He finds some strange berries to eat, which make him extremely sick. He then finds a raspberry patch, where he spots a bear. Brian constructs a shelter and in the middle of the night he hears a noise. A porcupine has entered his shelter and Brian throws the hatchet in its direction. It shoots its quills into Brian's leg, causing him severe pain. Brian attempts to build a fire with no matches and eventually succeeds when he learns how to strike his hatchet against a stone to ignite sparks. He finds turtle eggs and eagerly eats them. One day a plane flies overhead but does not see him and continues on its way, leaving Brian devastated and hopeless. He attempts to commit suicide by cutting himself with his hatchet, but survives the attempt and emerges from the experience determined to embrace life and to take an active role in his own fate.

Brian soon catches his first fish and enjoys a big feast. That night, however, a skunk enters the shelter and when Brian yells at the skunk, it sprays him, temporarily blinding him and covering him with a horrible stench. Brian perfects his tools and catches a foolbird, his first meat. While he is cleaning the bird in the water, a moose attacks Brian, injuring his ribs and his shoulder. Another unfortunate incident soon follows when a tornado sweeps over the woods and destroys Brian's shelter.

The day after the tornado, Brian discovers that the chaotic storm has riled up the water in the lake, and the tail of the plane had emerged from the lake, reminding Brian of the dead pilot and compelling him to say a few words for him. Lying in bed one night, it occurs to Brian that he could seek out the survival pack in the body of the plane, and he determines to build a raft to do so. After many incidents of trial-and-error, Brian retrieves the survival pack from the plane. At one point he drops the hatchet to the lake's bottom, but retrieves it with a long dive. On his way back up to the surface, Brian sees the dead pilot's head underwater, partially eaten by fish. Brian gets sick in the water but manages to make it back to his shelter to get some sleep.

The next morning Brian opens the survival pack, which contains countless useful items, some of which Brian rejects in favor of the self-sufficient methods he has developed during his time in the woods. However, there is freeze-dried food that he decides to cook immediately. He also finds something labeled "Emergency Transmitter." He fiddles with it but it appears not to function. As Brian is preparing his much-anticipated meal, a plane lands on the lake to rescue a dumbfounded Brian sitting down to eat his freeze-dried meal.

Brian Robeson - The thirteen-year-old protagonist in the novel. Brian Robeson undergoes a difficult transition when his parents file for divorce. The memories of the divorce, fresh and painful, plague him throughout the book, although less so the more time passes. An incredibly dynamic character, he starts out as a New York City boy who takes for granted the daily conveniences of urban life, and transforms himself into a man of the wilderness, completely self-sufficient and very knowledgeable about his surrounding natural environment. His respect and love for nature only grow with time, as does his ability to come to terms with his parents' divorce.

Brian's mother - Brian's mother wants to get a divorce from Brian's father, as she is seeing another man, whom Brian does not know, but calls "the man with short blond hair." His mother has no idea that Brian knows about the affair, which he calls "The Secret." She attempts to talk to Brian about his moodiness, but he refuses to tell her that he knows about her affair. She gives the hatchet to Brian when he departs for the Canadian woods, and he senses her vulnerability during this time, as well as her frustration about Brian's lack of communicativeness. Brian resents his mother for her behavior.