Discussion Questions For Hatchet By Gary Paulsen

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to rely on your surroundings and yourself,all alone in the middle of the Canadian Wilderness? Would you survive? I asked myself the same question, when we started reading the novel, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. After being a survivor of a plane crash, and living in the wilderness all alone for 54 days, Brian works with the materials around him and pulls off a great survival. This was a great experience for Brian, because he was a young teenage boy, that had many moments, where he said , WOW, how did I think of that? Throughout the novel, he realized how to make a fire with his hatchet and stay away from from animals with quills.

With all the time he spent alone in the wilderness, he has witnessed

Brian stayed for a few days, but it came to the point where he had to do something to keep him warm. He was trying to think back to what his elders had told him but, the ideas weren’t coming to mind. He got so frustrated with himself, that they finally sparked. In chapter 8 the novel states,” The hatchet was the answer. That’s what his father and Terry had been trying to tell him. Somehow he could get fire from the hatchet. The sparks would make fire. Brian went back into the shelter and studied the wall. It was some form of chalky granite, or sandstone, but embedded in it were large pieces of darker stone, a harder and darker stone. It only took him a moment to find where the hatchet had struck.The steel had nicked into the edge of one of the darker stone pieces. Brian turned the head backward so he would strike with the flat rear of the hatchet and hit the black rock gently. Too gently, and nothing happened. He struck harder, a glancing blow, and two or three weak sparks skipped off the rock and

As Brian becomes more familiar with the animals and his surroundings, he was becoming braver. When he started hearing unusual noises,he began to worry and was thinking about how he was going to survive. Brian was worried about the food around him; if the porcupine had found it, he would have to find a new diet. In chapter 8, the novel states,” They were stiff and very sharp on the ends that stuck out, and he knew then what the attacker had been. A porcupine had stumbled into his shelter and when he had kicked it the thing had slapped him with its tail of quills. He touched each quill carefully. The pain made it seem as if dozens of them had been slammed into his leg, but there were only eight, pinning the cloth against his skin.” This quote clearly shows that Brian was unaware of how dangerous the animals could be. He also learned that he should respect the animals and not disturb or anger them. The animals were very wild and couldn’t make “friends” with human beings. I think this was important because he learned that this mistake could have made him very sick, and had him to where he couldn’t move.This mistake might change things for Brian because he touched each quill carefully and if one of them got into his leg it could lead to a deadly infection. He might have a chance of getting any sickness from the porcupines such as rabies.Since he wasn’t prepared to be stranded, then he could be very sick and might not be able to find a cure. Brian had