Hatchet

Hatchet Summary | Plot Summary

Hatchet is the story of one boy's survival between nature and himself. Brian Robeson is 13 years old and trying to cope with his parents' recent divorce. Brian thinks he knows the reason behind his parents divorce, but holds it inside like his own internal punishment. He has seen what he wasn't supposed to see -- his mother and a strange man kissing. Shortly thereafter, his mother demanded a divorce from his father.

When the story opens, Brian is on his way to visit his father in northern Canada. Just prior to boarding a single-engine plane, Brian receives a present from his mother - a hatchet with a leather holder. He takes it from her after she insists that he wear it on his belt. He would never guess how critically important that hatchet would become to his physical, mental, and emotional survival.

On the flight, the pilot gives Brian a brief flying lesson. While flying over the Canadian wilderness, the worst thing possible happens: the pilot has a heart attack and dies. Piloting the plane alone is something Brian is completely unprepared for. He uses what little he learned to try to continue flying the plane for as long as possible.

During the course of several hours and an attempt at radio contact that fails, the plane's engine sputters, and finally runs out of gas. Landing in the water, Brian becomes stranded in the Canadian wilderness for the next 54 days.

Throughout this ordeal Brian discovers an untapped inner strength. From finding berries to eat to learning how to spear fish and capture birds, Brian learns to rely on himself in ways he's never done before. Instead of getting together with friends at the mall, Brian's days are now spent concerned with shelter and food. Brian learns to start a fire without matches, build enough of a shelter to keep him safe, and find enough food to keep him alive.

Brian learns to always do the most important chores first - whether it's gathering enough wood for several days, making sure that his fire is stoked up enough to stay lit while foraging for food, or finding ways to preserve food for later use. He realizes that he'll perish if he doesn't pay attention to these details. Things he used to take for granted like a roof over his head, plenty of food to eat, and safety suddenly become critical to surviving each day.

Brian experiences death and rebirth several times over the course of this novel. When the plane crashes and he survives, he is reborn for the first time. A new part of him grows when he tries something new, fails, and tries again. When he hears a plane overhead and lights a signal fire, his whole being dies when the plane turns away. Even a failed suicide attempt springs new life in him rather than despair.

Brian savors his new-found abilities. His dream of being rescued fades away with each day. In its place is Brian's concern about the onset of autumn and winter. After a violent storm one night, Brian is able to see the tail of his crashed and submerged plane. The storm and tornado that accompanied it have brought the plane to the surface. Brian's pride in his survival changes the day he rescues a survival pack from the plane.

He constructs a raft, rescues the survival pack from inside the plane, and brings it back to camp. Everything he needs to survive and make do, Brain finds in the pack, but he doesn't like the feeling. From Brian's new viewpoint, the contents of the pack make survival too easy.

His ordeal is over just as quickly as his plane crashed. In the survival pack he finds an emergency transmitter. A bush pilot hears the signal, sees the tail of the plane in the lake, and lands.

After returning to civilization, Brian doesn't lose the skills he learned and the senses he gained while living in the wild. He knows that he never will be the Brian Robeson who left Hampton, New York to visit his father in Canada. He gained a great advantage in that he has been reborn of body, spirit and inner strength.