Hatchet Chapters 1-4
Brian has never been in a single-engine plane before, and the one he has just boarded is a bush plane, a Cessna. He is going to visit his father, who is a mechanical engineer working in the Canadian oil fields. This will be his first summer with his father after his parents' divorce, which was finalized just a month ago. Brian’s mind eventually returns to that hateful word, and the secret that he had told no one about, which had been the cause for the divorce. Brian Robeson is a thirteen-year-old teenager, who has cried so much over the separation of his parents that tears no longer came to him. His eyes begin to burn as he thinks of his mother and father, and he looks at the pilot from the corner of his eye. The man seemed to be a part of the machine, not a human. So far, he had only spoken once to Brian, when he had told him to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. They were carrying some drilling equipment for his father, which was placed right below a survival pack.
The pilot notices Brian looking at him and he seems to ease a little. He shows Brian how to move the plane in the air, and explains that flying is relatively easy. Brian becomes distracted from the thoughts of the secret for a moment, but the pilot soon returns to his flying, while Brian begins to think about the ride up to the airport in Hampton, from where he had boarded this small plane. The whole two and a half hours of the ride to the airport, Brian barely spoke to his mother, although she tried to get him to speak to her. Eventually, her voice changed a little, and it reminded him of how much tenderness and love she bore him. She gave him a hatchet that could be hung from the belt, he normally wouldn’t have taken it so willingly, but she seemed sensitive and so he put it on to show her. He forgot to take it off and even now had it on him.
Suddenly, the plane jerks one way, and Brian turns to the pilot to find him rubbing his left arm. He also smells body gas, but dismisses it and assumes that the Pilot may be suffering from a stomach issue. He turns back to stare at the seemingly endless plains of trees and swamps, only to realize that the smell has intensified. He turns to find the pilot bent over in his seat, rubbing his arm. Brian watches the man have a severe heart attack, his eyes roll up and he falls onto the controls of the plane. Brian is stunned, at the occurrence, he makes himself touch the now unconscious pilot and searches for a pulse. He finds none.
The plane begins to descend slightly, and Brian forces himself to take the control of the plane. He pulls on the wheel too much and the plane rises too high, and then he abruptly pushes it down and it begins to hurl downwards. Brian calms himself and gently brings the plane level, and then remembers that the pilot had been trying to use the radio just before he had the heart attack. Brian takes the headset from the pilot, and screams for help, but hears no response. He continues to yell for help and cry until he remembers to press the switch on the radio to hear the other end. He immediately hears a voice asking him to explain his situation, Brian explains the pilot’s heart attack and his inability to fly the plane, however, the operator on the other end doesn’t seem to understand him completely. He asks for Brian’s flight number and location but Brian is aware of neither. He hears no more from the operator, but only a static. Brian realizes that soon the plane will certainly run out of fuel, and he would have to find a clearing to set it down, but he had seen no clearings, however, he had seen some lakes. He imagines the motion of a plane that has run out of fuel, and he remembers reading that he would need to aim the plane downwards to continue flying. He would have to pull back on the throttle at the end of the descent to ensure that he landed the plane safely. He calls for help over the radio every ten minutes but he never receives a response, and the plane engine suddenly stalls and dies.
The plane begins to hurl towards the green trees, and suddenly Brian can’t see any lakes, although there had been plenty of them throughout his journey. Brian screams in panic and suddenly sights an L-shaped lake a little to the side, and pulls the plane towards the lake and a little upwards. The speed of the plane drastically decreases, and Brian becomes convinced that he will not be able to make it, as the green of the trees becomes a little clearer to him. Luck favors him, and Brian finds the plan going through a lane clear of trees leading to the lake. There is a devastating sound as the wings of the plane are torn off by the trees, and Brian’s head smashes into the controls as the plane hits the lake surface. He tears at his seatbelt, as the water tears away the windshield and the side windows. He manages to free himself from the plane but inhales a lot of water before he breaks the surface of the water.
Brian reaches the surface, vomits out the water and dazedly pulls himself out of the water with desperation. He collapses and faints as soon as his chest meets the solid ground.
Brian remembers the day he found out his mother’s secret. He remembers all the details of the day. He had been riding around on his bike with his friend Terry, and he happened to notice his mom. She was sitting in a strange car, and Brian had just been about to call out to her when he noticed that she was sitting with a man. A man with short blond hair and a white pullover t-shirt, and then he saw the things that haunt him to this day. Brian wakes up in a daze and pulls himself out of the water, and puts his back to a small tree. He is surprised to learn that he hasn’t broken any bones only his forehead feels extremely tender and swollen. He remains sitting there, unable to tell the passage of time and when the sun begins to set slightly, he is attacked by a thick swarm of mosquitoes and flies. He is barely able to breathe as the mosquitoes swarm into his mouth and nostrils, he tries to kill as many of them but they continue to come. Brian tries to cover himself but is unable to do so, and screams out in frustration unable to muster the energy to run away. The swarm soon flees, and Brian realizes that the mosquitoes were like vampires, only it was too cold for them in the night and too hot in the sun. He tries to not think about the dead pilot and notices a rock outcrop in the lake that isn’t too far away from where he had landed. He realizes that had his plane landed a little to the side he would’ve been destroyed, and puts it down to good luck. But that feeling soon fades as he thinks that if he had been lucky, then his parents wouldn’t be divorced and he thus wouldn’t have crashed into a forest.
Brian is unused to being in nature, and instead of the grey and black colors of the city, he now just sees the blue and green blur of the forest and the lake. He watches the lake and notices the head of a beaver bob across the surface, and sees hundreds of fish begin to jump out of the water.
Analysis
The first section of the book is rife with foreshadowing, and language that immerses the reader into Brian's perspective. The reader experiences Brian's plane ride completely from his viewpoint without any external narrative. The short sentences in that section mirror the panicked thoughts Brian has as he tries to deal with the sudden demise of the pilot and having to land the plane. Paulsen foreshadows the pilot's demise, and Brian's eventual need to fly the plane when the pilot offers Brian a short tutorial of flying. The pilot tells Brian that flying is easy, and it just takes learning like all other things in life. The pilot's comment foreshadows not only Brian's need to fly the plane, but also his survival in the Candian wilderness. The pilot's mention of the survival pack is also an important detail since it is what leads to Brian's eventual rescue.
The theme of survival is introduced by the author before Brian becomes stranded in the woods. His struggle to land the plane is the first of the many life-threatening situations that he faces and it demonstrates that he possesses the abilities needed to survive on his own. Brian is clear-headed, brave, and tenacious, qualities that are central to his survival.
Another important theme introduced in this section is that of the contrast between the urban environment and the wilderness. Brian first recognizes the difference when he observes the difference in color between the two environments.
