Summary Of The Hatchet By Gary Paulsen

Water toar through the glass, shards of metal ripping like paper, curling up into long, shiny tendrils. Glass shattered, water flooding through every crack. Blue, dark, deep water. Your lungs collapse as you gulp a single breathe before going down. Going into the unknown. Your launched from your seat, fabric tearing as your stuck in a heavy metal plane sinking to the bottom of a lake. A terrifying thing to imagine, a scene creating only fear and pain. Welcome to the Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. The main conflict all starts with a single sentence: The plane is going down. Spoiler, Hatchet’s main character, Brain, survives. And so the adventure begins. Well, a nightmare describes his experience a little better. Stuck in the Canadian wilderness,

As Brain struggles through the long, hot days and cold, lonely nights, he learns through moment after moment techniques on how to survive. Throughout the novel, we learn how important fire becomes to Brian. How it keeps him alive, its glow the only thing Brian can trust, can use. Yet, his discovery of this life giving element was on accident. Purely thought of as sparks lit up a dark cave. Chapter 8 is the backbone to all said above, Brain realizing the capabilities on his hands. The quote, “Like fire. That was it, he thought...Fire. That hatchet was the key to it all. When he threw the hatchet at the porcupine in the cave and missed and hit the stone wall it had showered sparks, a golden shower of sparks in the dark, as golden with fire as the sun…” highlights the aha moment. The sparks had given it away, and Brian had a faint idea of how to use his knowledge to his advantage. Fire was critical, and without it Brian would have starved, died. He cooked with it, boiled water. It offered light, warmth during the cold, wet nights. To scared away the things lurking at night, the things with hook like claws and razor like teeth. Fire was something no one could deny as important. This aha moment, though so dull and uninteresting was the key to Brian, the thing that kept his heart beating and his spirit