Hatchet

“There are these things to do.” This was what Brian Robeson, a thirteen-year-old boy, told himself all the time and that is the most important thing to keep while being in wilderness. This is a story about changing and accepting.

This lonely story took place in the Canadian wilderness. This should be a story filled with happiness in the beginning, on account that Brian, the main character, was taking a single-engine plane to visit his father. However, tragedies are always behind events that seem to go well. After the pilot of the plane got a heart attack, Brian had to control the plane without any professional knowledge himself. Not knowing his exact location and the way to go, he decided to land on a safe place before the plane ran out of fuel. Finally, Brian landed on a wonderful landing spot in time. Before drowned, he got out of the destroyed plane and started waiting for help.

The saddest part was when he started to lose hopes. At first, he thought if his parents didn’t see him, they would search for him using the flight course. Nevertheless, he found the course has been changed since the pilot’s foot jerked down on the rudder pedal. Then he had no alternative but to live alone with only a hatchet in the woods. After days, there was a plane flying across, but Brian didn’t notice it earlier to get away. That was the second time Brian feeling depressed because of setting stuck. After that, he was determined to start a new life, as the new tough Brian totally different from the easily frightened one. Days he had gone through by himself made him different. Things such as making fire by himself, getting fish or rabbits for food, overcoming the damage a tornado brought and thinking alone all made him understand how precious those we take for granted in cities are. Eventually, he was rescued by the emergency transmitter he found in the survival pack. Additionally, there was one think he had kept thinking about, and that was the reason caused his parents’ divorce. He had been haunted when he saw his mother kissed another man. In the end, he learned how to deal with it and was no longer bothered by it.

It is incredible to experience these above with Brian. My emotion varied from time to time because of everything that happened to him. Gary Paulsen is the one who is capable of maneuvering people’s feeling with his amazing creativity. As a matter of fact, I feel like ‘watching’ the story instead of reading it, and I was right there with Brian. From him and his experiencing, I learned all things in our daily life are not always easy to get and we must be thankful for what we own. Brian sometimes made fun of himself as a city boy who acted in a city way. We human too often regard everything natural. In my opinion, this is what Paulsen really wanted to say. I consider the present time is not only the best but also the worst. People have got everything they need nowadays, but that also leads to a situation where people lose their passion of exploring. I also realized how difficult it is to start a new life. Especially to Brian, who experienced times full of hopes as well as depression and finally decided to make a change, trying to live seriously instead of wishing for the rescue. It may seem that it was the surroundings that changed him, but I would say, what really made him different were his perspectives. The life would change only when his thinking is ready to change. It requires enormous courage to accept things that change a lot. For me, Brian is the symbol of the possibility to change.

I consider keeping positive and confident is essential throughout the process of both being grateful to what we own though there’s sometimes not much and changing. As Brian’s teacher, Perpich, said, “You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that. You are the best thing you have.” Believe in what you can do, and then you will make it.