72 pages • 2 hours read
Gary PaulsenHatchet
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is onboard a “Cessna 406—a bushplane” (1) to visit his father for the summer. He is lost in thought, thinking about his parents’ divorce and “what he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew—the Secret” (3). The pilot notices Brian observing him and offers to teach him to fly the plane. He assures Brian that flying is much easier than it seems. Brian finds that to be true as he learns the pedals and controls.
Brian thinks about his parents’ divorce and the way his mother tried to talk with him on the drive to the airport. He refused to tell her why he was so upset and reveal his awareness of her affair. He suddenly notices a “constant odor” and looks at the pilot, who is “rubbing the shoulder and down the arm now, the left arm” (7). Brian remembers that he still has his hatchet attached to his belt, the hatchet his mother gave him as a gift just before leaving him at the airport. He is thinking about the hatchet and how odd it is to have one strapped to his belt on a plane when the pilot begins to have a heart attack. Brian remembers seeing a man in a shopping mall have a heart attack; the pilot looks very similar. The pilot tries to radio in a message but dies before he can complete the call. Brian realizes with horror that the pilot is dead and he is alone on a plane he doesn’t know how to fly.
Chapter 2 Summary
Brian sees the pilot’s head rolling unnaturally on his neck as the plane hits turbulence. He feels for a pulse but there is nothing. The plane is still flying, and Brian has no idea what to do. He doesn’t want the plane to hit the trees, so he decides he will try to fly it. He reaches over and uses the steering wheel and pedals. Once he gets a good handle on keeping the plane steady, he tries to use the radio for help, screaming in panic. He tells the man on the other end that he is alone in a plane and doesn’t know how to fly. But the man can barely hear or understand him, and they eventually lose reception.
Brian flies for another hour, unsure of what to do or how or where to land. Every 10 minutes he tries the radio again, hoping someone will answer. He plans to fly until the plane runs out of fuel, then attempt to land in a lake. Suddenly, the engine cuts out, and Brian is forced to push “the nose of the plane down” (24). This sudden movement causes him to throw up.
Chapter 3 Summary
As the plane dives down, Brian sees only “green death trees” (26). Luckily, he spots a lake, “L-shaped, with rounded corners, and the plane [is] nearly aimed at the long part of the L” (26). As the plane comes down toward the lake, it catches on the trees at the side, which rips the wings back. The plane skips along the water, shattering glass. Forceful rushing water slams Brian’s head into the steering wheel and back against his seat. He hears himself screaming as the plane sinks down into the water. He struggles to free himself from his seatbelt, but “somehow he [pulls] himself out of the shattered front window and clawed up into the blue” (28). He swims as hard as he can, almost dying from lack of oxygen. He breaks the surface of the water and passes out.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters are fast-paced, covering the story’s rising action. Brian is a 13-year-old suddenly thrust into a life-or-death situation. The narrative voice is clear and concise, yet a great deal of foreshadowing occurs within the action. First, Brian thinks about the hatchet his mother gave him just before he boarded the airplane: “he would normally have said no, would normally have said that it looked too hokey to have a hatchet on your belt […] to humor her he loosened his belt […] and put the hatchet on” (8). We know from the title that the hatchet is important; by the end of the novel, Brian attributes all his survival success to this one tool. The hatchet both symbolizes his mother’s love, as it is a gift from her and provides him with support throughout his ordeal, and a constant reminder of his anger toward her. It is lucky that she gave him the hatchet, but if it weren’t for her affair, he would have never been on the flight in the first place.
The next instance of foreshadowing comes from one of the pilot’s few lines of dialogue. He tries to convince Brian that flying is not as difficult as it seems: “all of flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else. Like everything else” (5). These words are true of flying, and as Brian will learn, true of surviving in the wilderness as well. After the pilot dies, Brian is faced with the reality that he must become self-sufficient to survive: “He had to help himself” (15). This is a lesson he learns over and again, particularly after the rescue plane flies over him without seeing him. It isn’t until Brian fully learns to help himself that he becomes comfortable and confident in his ability to survive.
Finally, Chapter 3 ends with Brian pushing his way up from the wrecked plane, barely breaking the lake’s surface before running out of oxygen. This scene will be echoed at the end of the novel, when Brian must dive into the lake and fight back to the surface to retrieve the survival pack from the sunken airplane. This pack contains the emergency transmitter that ultimately leads to his rescue, showing that only Brian’s ability to “help himself” (15) can save him.
Related Titles
By Gary Paulsen
