Hatchet by Gary Paulsen: Plot, Setting, and Survival

Introduction: Brian Robeson's Survival Story

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, is one of the most highly rated and revered young adult novels ever written. A thirteen-year-old boy named Brian Robeson finds himself in the survival adventure of a lifetime. He is initially presented as a boy burdened by his parents' divorce—and adding to that pain, Brian has witnessed his mother kissing a strange man beside a station wagon.

There are interesting ironies at the beginning of the book. Brian is preparing to spend the summer in the north woods of Canada, where his father—an engineer—is working in the oil fields. Just before Brian boards a small Cessna for Canada, his mother gives him a hatchet as a gift, and he cannot see the purpose of it at the time. But after the plane crash launches him into a terrifyingly lonely and challenging experience alone in the wilderness, he finds extraordinarily practical use for that hatchet. Staying alive in the remote wilderness is a tremendous challenge, and the book details in easy-to-read narrative exactly how this thirteen-year-old manages to do it.

Plot Summary and Key Events

This is not merely a book about a boy in a dangerous situation; it is truly a survival story. When the plane's pilot suffers a heart attack and dies mid-flight—having fortuitously shown Brian the controls just beforehand—Brian somehow survives the crash and finds himself alone with little more than the clothes on his back and that hatchet. He does not know where he is and has received no survival training, yet for roughly two months he learns to survive by trial and error. That hatchet becomes his most reliable companion.

The plane did contain a survival kit, though Brian did not discover this until an unlikely tornado swept across the Canadian lake, destroying his shelter and somehow lifting the tail of the Cessna above the surface of the water. Brian had smart instincts and had stayed near the lake, reasoning that "the plane, even deep in the water, might show up to somebody flying over" (Paulsen 55). When he finally reaches the submerged wreckage, the survival kit proves invaluable.

In many ways, this is also a coming-of-age story. When Brian is eventually rescued—after pushing a button on the survival transmitter that broadcast his location—he is tougher, more confident, and wiser than he was before. He has learned to make choices and take responsibility for himself.

A particularly meaningful moment early in Brian's ordeal is when he discovers that the far side of the stone ridge "wasn't very deep, not a cave, but it was smooth and made a perfect roof and he could almost stand under the ledge" (55). He had originally planned to build a shelter against the stone, but he "got lucky" by checking the far side (55). Having even a crude temporary shelter gave him comfort. "Keep it simple. I am Brian Robeson . . . I am going to find some berries," he says after constructing it (60–61). The emotional low point is also rendered with striking honesty: "He sat on the bank and fought crying. Then let it come and cried for perhaps three, four minutes. Long tears, self-pity tears, wasted tears" (68).

Setting, Characters, and Time Frame

Brian finds himself a survivor in the Canadian wilderness. The time frame is believed to be the 1990s. His father is working in oil production in northern Canada, so the setting is very far north—deep woods where trappers, both Native American and otherwise, have long plied their trade. Brian is alone for 54 days, and the Epilogue confirms this: "Brian had been alone on the L-shaped lake for fifty-four days" (189).

Brian Robeson is the protagonist—a thirteen-year-old boy who is initially distressed by his parents' divorce and agitated by having witnessed his mother's intimate moment with another man. His mother never appears directly in the story; her role is conveyed entirely through Brian's memory and inner thoughts. "The Secret"—his knowledge of her relationship with another man—is something Brian originally considered telling his father, but ultimately decides to keep to himself. The pilot who rescues Brian appears only at the novel's conclusion.

Works Cited

Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.