Brian in Hatchet
Introduction
The main character in the Hatchet is Brian, a thirteen-year-old who decides to board a plane from Hampton, New York headed to Canadian North woods to meet his father. While in the plane, he receives some lessons about controlling the plane for a few minutes. However, the pilot experiences pain in both his stomach and shoulder.
While Brian does not consider the occurrence as serious at first, the pilot begins jerking in his seat, thus indicating a potential heart attack. Nevertheless, the pilot dies from the heart attack, thus forcing Brian to assume control of the plane (page 4). As Brian struggles to gain control of the plane, it descents and crashes into the Canadian woods. Through his exceptional dynamic character, Brian manages to survive in the woods. Notably, he applies the trial and error method to achieve perfection and succeed in his endeavors. Despite his achievements, Brian feels both lucky and unlucky.
Lucky
Brian feels lucky due to his survival during the crash. Firstly, he receives lessons on how to control the plane for a few minutes. These few lessons tend to have an impact on Brian’s survival since they help him in controlling the plane after the pilot dies from a heart attack. Consequently, he considers himself lucky for having landed on a safe area within the forest as opposed to landing on trees, where he would have sustained serious injuries. Brian is lucky to have sustained only minor cuts and scratches, despite the crashing of the plane. Given the accident caused by the plane crash, Brian considers the fact that he did not need much medical attention as a form of luck. The encounter of the pilot’s corpse and the crashed plane
Unlucky
While Brian feels lucky for having survived the plane crash, he still considers himself unlucky following the divorce of his parents. The divorce of his parents destroyed his stable and happy life. In this case, Brian refers to the divorce as “The Secret”, which he later discloses to be his mother’s affair. The strangers involved in the divorce process including lawyers and judges tend to annoy Brian. In this case, he is concerned with the way they seem dishonest, and yet have the power to define his fate (page 54).
As a result of the divorce, it is decided that Brian lives with his mother, with visitation rights granted for his father. In this case, he is faced with a dilemma regarding his mother’s actions that tore his family apart as well as her previous caring character. In this case, Brian considers himself unlucky due to the divorce of his parents that led to the initialization of the journey to see his father, thus resulting in a clash.
Epilogue
Brian gets rescued from the wilderness by a man who he later learns to be a fur buyer surveying Cree tapping camps. After being rescued, Brian had lost much of his body weight, thus making him thin for a long time. Notably, Brian maintains the observant and thoughtful attributes he had gained while in the wilderness. Despite the parent’s celebration on the return of their son, they resume their normal lives adapted after the divorce. While Brian feels compelled to tell his father, he fails to disclose “The Secret” which entailed his mother’s affair (page, 69).
Work Cited
Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. Simon and Schuster, 2009.
https://scotland.k12.mo.us/view/637.pdf