Hatchet’ Speech.
‘Hatchet’ by Gary Paulsen is a great book about survival in the wild. It follows the time of a boy, Brian Robson, who crash lands in the middle of a Canadian forest.
I think Brian would have though of his time in the forest as fulfilling. Maybe not in the middle of the story, but afterwards, he would of thought of it as a very good experience.
From only pages of the book, Brian starts to learn. When the pilot offers him a quick ‘lesson’ of flying the Cessna plane, this saves his life when the pilot dies a horrific heat attack in his seat. This causes Brian to panic, but he safely crash lands inside a lake.
Then soon after, he starts to learn that just some insects are coming wanting his flesh. He never thought they were that bad until they cause him to swell all over
The only stuff Brian had seen about the wild was on nature films “They only showed animals jumping around in the bushes and the rolling mountains”. It said in the novel. Brian had only lived in the city, where he is hidden away from the wilderness. He had never been into a forest before. So he was living by what he knew, which was very little.
When he goes looking for berries, he is confronted by a big bear. He had seen one before in a zoo, and thought that they would be something to stay away from in the wild. He thinks he is done for, and thinks he will be attacked. But the bear leaves him alone, leaving him with the thought that they only attack you if you attack them.
He learns things that are not just relevant to wilderness survival but also about life. These include patience, appreciation for the natural world and observation.
He learns to control his temper when he discovers frustration and hopelessness does nothing.
He also learns by trial and error, like hunting or building his shelter. For example, his first shelter doesn’t work, so he spends more time on building the second. If a method fails to accomplish the job, Brian learns from his mistakes instead of dwelling on them.
Brian also notices the beauty of nature and its sights and sounds.
Living in the city has dulled his senses.
He uses his new senses to survive, like when at first he couldn’t locate the foolbirds he tries to hunt, they pop out of nowhere surprising him with their presence.
Brian quickly made a fire using small pieces of bark that caught fire really fast. He now had warmth and a shelter, the only he needed was a steady food supply.
Many individuals decide to live their life in solitary; though, only a few choose to live in the wild. The book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer vividly paints the adventurous trek Chris McCandless went on. From the friends he made, to the hardships he went through, McCandless is portrayed as a friendly, sociable person despite the fact that he was a vagabond. Other than McCandless, there are even more individuals that have taken the risks to live in the wilderness such as, Jon Krakauer and Everett Ruess. All three of them had both similarities and differences between their own qualities as a person and their journey.
He had to adapt from a normal teenager to a boy living in a Canadian wilderness. I am around the same age as Brian, but our lives are completely different. We are both very persistent in all the things we do. Brian is an important character in Hatchet because when he arrived in the forest, he used the hatchet his mother gave him and other resources around him to survive in a new environment. “I might be hit but I'm not done. I still have the hatchet and that's all I had in the first place." This quote shows Brian’s perseverance to survive. Lastly, Brian is a courageous boy who always strives to do his
Hatchet by Gary Paulson is a fiction novel about a thirteen-year-old boy named Brian that survives a plane crash after the pilot dies of a heart attack and Brian is forced to land the plane himself, and in doing so, lands in a lake around the setting of a Canadian forest. Throughout the duration of the novel, Brian is to survive this dangerous situation with nothing except for a literal hatchet that was gifted to him by his mother prior to getting on the plane to go visit his father in the Canadian North Woods as his parents are newly separated after a recent divorce. Gary Paulsen was inspired to write Hatchet from his own life and personal experiences as both of his parents gave him a hard time growing up through their rocky marriage and unstable parenting as well as the fact that he grew up in the country and had to provide for himself. Hatchet also received a 1988 Newbery Honor award for its excellency. The fiction book is a piece of his life and it’s struggles as he wrote it to convey the following opinions: positivity can get you far no matter what the situation at hand may be, man can
Gary Paulsen’s whole life reflects his life of adventures and survival in the wilderness and his writing reflects his experiences. Living in the remote Minnesota woods Paulsen released Some Birds Don't Fly in 1966 (Trelease), and began his professional writing career and now has achieved three Newbery Honor Books with his novels - Hatchet, The Winter Room and Dogsong (Pendergast). Paulsen’s most popular book, Hatchet, a story of a young boy named Brian who lands a plane after the pilot dies from a heart attack and must survive in the remote wilderness alone, reflects some of Paulsen’s real life experiences when he used to answer emergency calls and deal with many heart attack victims (Paulsen 2). The plane crash in Hatchet was also created by Paulsen after he was on the scene of a plane crash were the pilots died (Paulsen 7). Gary Paulsen’s experiences from living alone in the Minnesota woods to racing dogs in the Iditarod race has been exposed and reflected in a majority his writings.
ultimately defends the wild in all of its forms. He opens the novel with a narrative story about a
John Karkauer novel, Into the Wild displays a true life story about a young man by the name of Christopher McCandless, who creates a new life for himself by leaving civilization to live in the wilderness. The story displays how Christopher develops and matures throughout the story by prevailing harsh predicaments and learning valuable lessons on the way. Christopher’s character evolves by comprehending several new lessons and such as finding true pleasure, disregarding other people’s judgments, as well as realizing that material things are just material things and nothing else. All through the story, Christopher struggles to discover the true satisfaction in his life. Christopher struggles to choose what makes him truthfully content over what makes his parents glad. Christopher’s parents want him to attend law school, despite the fact that he wants to follow his passion to live in the northern wild. Christopher’s letter to his sister Carine says, “or that they think I’d actually let them pay for my law school if I was going to go….” (Krakauer.pg21). According to this quote it can be known that Christopher does not really feel any pleasure or happiness in wanting to go to law school. He finds his satisfaction with life on the road and experiences this because life on the road gives him endless possibilities and adventures every day. Christopher’s letter to Ron Franz goes as, “I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin in boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt……Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.”(Krakaur.pg56-57). The letter details the benefits of living a life in the wild such as the new adventures you face every day. Chris feels what actually happiness is, when he meets face to face with the wild. As he experiences the northern wild, he learns that true happiness doesn’t come from one source, but from various foundations in a person’s life. Chris penned a brief note, which says, “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”(Krakauer.pg199) The brief note shows that even though Chris was on the edge of death, he was finally happy with his life.
Plot Summary: This flight to see his father in the Canadian wilderness is Brains first time in an airplane. He explains this to the pilot and tells him that he is scared. The pilot feels sorry for Brian and decides to show him that flying is not very difficult. He lets Brian take the steering control and direct the line of flight for a while. Just when Brian thinks that everything is going well, the pilot has a heart attack and dies. Brian knows he must land the plane himself or die. He tries to use the radio without success. He knows that if he hits the trees, he can die, so he decides to land in the water of a lake. When the plane is in the water, he gets out through a window. He lay on the bank of the lake for a while to rest. Brian knew he needed food and shelter to survive so he set out to find both. He was very careful not to get lost or go too far from the lake where his water was. He found a cherry tree and because he was very hungry, he ate his fill. He filled his windbreaker with cherries to eat later and then managed to find a cave for shelter. He slept very well, but in the morning when he awoke, he saw a bear in the cave. He was terrified, because the bear was only about 20 feet away eating his cherries out of his windbreaker. The bear only looked at Brian and then left. The cherries must have been enough to curb his appetite! The discovery of how to make a fire was very important to Brains survival. He needed to have one at the mouth of the cave to protect him from wild animals, and to signal for help.
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
The value of his life increases as he runs from Zaroff and the hounds thru the woods. He also refuses to kill Zaroff when he has the opportunity because he has valued the life of other human beings. In the time he was being chased, he learned to even value the lives of the other animals in the world, and he thinks of of being an animal at bay. Furthermore, he will try to not become what he fears.
The book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, was a very interesting story about a young man going to live out in the wild of Alaska. This young mans name is Chris McCandless also known as Alex Supertramp. He had a lot of courage to go out this trip facing the wild. He has set high hopes for how young he is. Graduating college than leaving directly after graduating and burned all of his money and left his car and most possessions behind. His bravery definitely had a big impact on the story. With his bravery, it seemed like he has done this before and has no weariness. Chris was very independent on his trip. He received little help from people. He got work a few times to buy gear for his trip to Alaska, other than that he was either hitch hiking or walking.
This book Into The Wild is about how a young man wants to get away from the world. He does escape from society, but ends up dying in the process. The author, Jon Krakauer, does a great job of describing Chris McCandless and his faults. Chris is an intelligent college graduate. He went on a two-year road trip and ended up in Alaska. He didn't have any contact with his parents in all of that time. Krakauer does a great job of interviewing everyone who had anything to do with McCandless from his parents, when he grew up, to the people who found his body in Alaska.
Have you ever felt stuck? Wherever you are, it’s the absolute last place you want to be. In the book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless feels stuck just like the average everyday person may feel. Chris finds his escape plan to the situation and feels he will free himself by going off to the wild. I agree with the author that Chris McCandless wasn’t a crazy person, a sociopath, or an outcast because he got along with many people very well, but he did seem somewhat incompetent, even though he survived for quite some time.
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
he retains the innocence and naive characteristics of a child. The creature’s grasp of human-like qualities allows the