Surviving the Wilderness Over 68% of plane crashes happen in the beginning and ending of plane landings. In Hatchet, a fictional novel written by Gary Paulsen, the protagonist, Brian, is a normal thirteen year old boy. Then his plane crashes in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Brian’s parents had recently gotten divorced because of the secret that Brian’s mom was cheating on Brian’s dad. The wilderness is now his home that he has to survive in for the next fifty-four days. This place that Brian has to live in is the setting that Hatchet takes place in. So, the setting in Hatchet adds greatly to the novels major theme, determinedness, by being a major part of what the story revolves around, how the wilderness is not easy to live in, how mother nature can be very unpredictable and how …show more content…
As stated by the author, “And then came hunger… and there was, he thought, absolutely nothing to eat,” (Paulsen 48). This quote reinforces the idea that the wilderness is very hard to live in. This is critical because this hunger leads rian to his first food, gut cherries, and eventually led him to catch his first meat, fish. This driving hunger led Brian to do great things, which leads us to the idea of how nature can be very unpredictable. Even when mother nature puts a tornado in the picture, Brian stays motivated to survive. The test directly states, “It that the best you can do? Is that all you can hit me with - … a tornado?” (Paulsen 157). In other words the quote is stating that Brian is very dedicated to survive. These incidents would not have happened if Brian was not stranded in the wilderness, the setting of the Hatchet. To conclude, if Brian had not crashed in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, none of the plot would have happened, and Brian would have never learned to be so