Essay On Hatchet

1309 Words6 Pages

The book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen is a coming of age story about a boy named Brian Robeson who is stranded in the wildness and has to learn how to survive on his own. The book is fairly interesting, interlacing survival with dealing with a divorce in an young adult novel. Many of the parts in this story are useful for students to learn. Many of the themes are also relatable to the lives of students. Brian is very similar to other young adult heros but different enough that he could be compared to other heroes. The story structure also helps with understanding the story and comparing it to other young adult literature, which makes it a good story to teach. The story is also entertaining enough that anyone could pick it up and enjoy it. Unlike …show more content…

Brian’s adventure begins when the pilot dies and Brian is forced to fly the plane before he ultimately crashes the plane into the wilderness, separating him from his family and the rest of civilization. Brian is very similar to many of the other heroes in young adult literature. One of the ways he is similiar is through his quest for identity. The divorce between Brian’s parents made his life unstable and muddied his sense of self. When the plane crashes in the woods, Brian then has to learn to grown up and survive. Brian is a little different from other heroes in young adult literature because not every hero is placed in the wild, forced to survive. Being stuck in the wilderness allows for Brian to gain the skills to work through his parents’ divorce like an …show more content…

A good one would be the theme of perseverance, as this idea is very useful for anything a student does, even after they graduate. Family can also transcend adolescence because family is meant to be comforting and this story shows that families are not always perfect. If it was not for the conflict of Brian’s parents going through a divorce, Hatchet could have easily been an awakening story instead of bildungsroman, because the survival aspect of this story could be applied to anyone or anyone could have been placed in this