Summary Of Carl Hiaasen's 'Scat'

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but triumph over it,” is what Nelson Mandela, a great revolutionary, once stated. Courage is seen in many scenarios, and one of them is in the novel, Scat, by Carl Hiaasen. Hiaasen places the plot in the hands of two fourteen year olds, Nick and Marta, the protagonists. It all starts when their biology teacher, Mrs. Starch goes missing. Although Hiaasen makes her seem like the antagonist at first, later plot twists reveal that Drake McBride and Jimmy Lee Bayliss, two entrepreneurs in an oil scam, are the true antagonists. The oil scam they are running has endangered the life of a Florida panther cub that has been separated from its mother. Nick, Marta, and their friends, Twilly and Duane

Since the main theme is courage, the author, Carl Hiaasen is putting Nick in a tight spot, where he has to use courage to do the right thing. In this case, Nick has to be courageous, forget about all his pain, and do what he knows he should: return the baby panther to the mother panther in the tree.The quote from the story that shows the theme of courage is: “Pulling in spite of the worst pain he’d ever felt, or had ever imagined feeling. Pulling even with a terrified wild panther cub attached like a cactus to his flesh, yowling and spitting in his face”(p. 342). In the quote, Nick has broken his dominant arm while climbing up a tree to reunite a frightened panther cub with its mother. The panther cub is very frightened, and clawing Nick’s chest. Nick is in horrible pain, with his arm broken, and his chest getting ripped to shreds by the panther cub. Nick’s courage is classified into one type of courage: environmental courage. Environmental courage means that someone is willing to risk their life for the greater good of the environment. Carl Hiaasen, uses some elements of “algebra,” as described by Lisa Cron in “Wired for Story: The Writer's guide to Using Brain Science to Hook the Reader from the Very First Sentence,” to keep the readers on the edge of their seats,

Courage is shown both mentally and physically in Hiaasen’s novel. The scenes in the book that best describe Hiaasen’s message to the readers--what the true meaning of courage is--are when the protagonist risks his life to return a panther cub to its mother, when the protagonist hangs on to the last bit of hope he has for his dad healing from an injury, and when a character has lost courage in himself. Courage is one of the unique traits that define us as a human being. Sometimes, we as humans, perceive courage differently than what the true meaning of courage is. Our minds see courage as someone saving the world, or being fearless, often overlooking mental courage. Hiaasen, in his writing, poses a question to the reader, one that makes them think about courage: Does courage always mean being fearless? Is courage always associated with overcoming a fear? Humans tend to be wired with the belief that a good story should be enthralling, and have courageous characters. Hiaasen alters the reader's stereotypical view of courage . Hiaasen does not provide readers with characters that fit the “stereotype” of courage. Maybe, Hiaasen wants the reader to observe the true, and imperfect human being. The reader’s mind then makes a startling discovery, as it stumbles upon a part in the story that forces the reader to redefine their perception of courage.