The Hatchet Part Four

Hatchet Blog Post #4

Brian is being more productive with his time. First he made a Fire then he found the Eggs and now he is making a spear to hunt the fish in the lake. He reshaped the Hatchet so it’s in the shape of a spear head. But he can’t catch any fish. They are just too fast. Brian is frustrated he was so sure that the spear was going to work he had worked in the design for a long time. So what he decides to do to make his spear go faster is he decides to create a bow and arrow. So he goes looking for supplies. He found some trees but they just weren’t right to create the bow but later he found a tree that when he pulled it back it had a lot of strength and flexibility. But as he is cutting the tree he hears something, A plane Brian was finally going to get saved so he runs back towards the noise which he presumes it’s a plane engine and visualizes how it would be to go back home. But just when he arrives at the camp the plane is getting away from him, he tries to get its attention by grabbing a stick with fire on it and making a smoke signal but the Pilot doesn’t see it and he goes away. That’s when Brian loses all hope of being rescued. Some time has passed and Brian is hunting for Birds, but as he does he feels the need to stop and look around. That’s when he sees the wolfs but he is not scared he now understands things better and he knew the wolf would not do anything to him. So he was not afraid. He was a new Brian. He recalls a lot of things from the point in time where he is now and the point when the plane had passed. He had tried to kill himself by cutting himself but then he hated what he had done so he decided to live. He perfected the bow and caught his first fish. He had been attacked by a skunk at the middle of the night and he was blind for two hours. He created a new stronger and more resistant shelter to protect himself. He also created a storage pace in a place that was high up so that the animals couldn’t reach it and he created a ladder so that he could reach it. Brian now will try to create a place so he can store the fish alive and eat them later on. He is remembering a lot of things now like the first day he ate meat from the birds (Foolbirds he called them). He was not the same he had experienced a lot of stuff and all that stuff changed him. After that a lot of bad things happen. The Moose and the Tornado. He had been attacked by a violent moose in the day just a senseless rampage that the moose had and when he lay in his shelter hurt came the tornado. It flung everything apart and leaving him without nothing, nothing but the Hatchet. It had restarted everything. The next day he starts to rebuild. He noticed as he built that the Tornado had made the plane surface and then he thought about the survival pack he wanted to go get it. He decides to make a raft to go towards the tail and then find his way in. When he arrives to the tail he sees that the metal is very soft and he is able to cut it quite easily with the hatchet. But after some time cutting he drops the hatchet into the water and he is forced to dive in and get it back. When he gets inside of the plane he searches for the bag and finds the body of the pilot he is horrified because the fish had eaten away most of his face so he gets the bad and gets away from there. He found a lot of wonderful things in the pack like a knife a sleeping bag and even a rifle. He found an emergency transmitter but it didn’t seem to work and the last and most important thing to him was the food. A lot of food was there and he decided he was too hungry and he wanted to eat so he decided to have a feast. Then without warning a plane appeared it glided through the lake and the pilot came out and said that he had heard the emergency transmitter. Brian was saved. Brian is safe now and he is with his family again he decided not to tell his father about the secret in the end so now Brian Is safe and happy, and he is different from what he was before.

But it kept moving away until he could not hear it even in his imagination, in his soul. Gone. He stood on the bluff over the lake, his face cooking in the roaring bonfire, watching the clouds of ash and smoke going into the sky and thought—no, more than thought—he knew then that he would not get out of this place. Not now, not ever

In this Quote we see that Brian has lost hope. He has lost any hope of being rescued. Here I think Brian is really a lot more mature than how he was at the beginning of his trip. At first he was thinking about surviving until he was rescued but he didn’t think about a long term survival plan. Now that he is realized that he might not be saved he is aware that he might have to survive here forever and I think this is good because he will start making decision based in this. But I also believe he might just give up because of this instead of making better long term decisions he might just give up on life and not even try to survive.

 

He was not the same now—the Brian that stood and watched the wolves move away and nodded to them was completely changed. Time had come, time that he measured but didn't care about; time had come into his life and moved out and left him different. In measured time forty-seven days had passed since the crash. Forty-two days, he thought, since he had died and been born as the new Brian.

Brian has passed a long time alone in the forest now and in this quote we can see that he has changed. He now accept the fact that he might never get rescued so he will have to make do with what he has and take care of himself without a false hope of getting saved. He now just cares about surviving and he has gotten used to the forest he knows how things work in there and how to survive. I think this brings up a really interesting topic to talk about and that is that Brian has used the Hatchet his only tool to survive. And I think that that’s the real reason why the story is called the hatchet not because he survived because of it but because it reflects the human spirit and how we humans are persistent and hopeful and resourceful when we want to be and the story is named the hatchet because it shows how Brian uses the only tool he has and manages to survive and thrive with it.