Alone in the Wilderness with an Axe

F ather Mike Schmitz has discovered one of the key tools in a speaker’s belt: story. His weekly homilies nearly always begin with relevant anecdotes, some of which are fun, others sad, and others thought-provoking. Scattered through the homilies are other tales, some of which involve his family members, and not long ago, one of these highlighted his sister, his nephew, and the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

Published in 1986, this book follows 13-year-old Brian Robeson into the Canadian wilderness. Here, he must survive with only his wits and a hatchet after the pilot of his plane dies of a heart attack. Paulsen convincingly depicts for readers how Brian flies and crash-lands the plane, but surviving that trauma is only the beginning of his trials.

At one point, Brian is absolutely defeated, exhausted, starving, and in pain, and he cries for quite some time:

He did not know how long it look, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work. . . . When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, was done with it all, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.

It’s this quote that Father Mike read during his recent homily. He said that his sister had once read it to her son, who I believe was very young at the time, telling him to take note: Crying solves nothing.

Amusing as this may be, there’s a lot of truth in it, and we see that reality play out as Brian’s story unfolds. If you’ve ever experienced a time when you had only your wits to rely on and no backup, you’ll immediately grasp Brian’s predicament. He makes many, many mistakes, he learns the power of observation, and he never takes food for granted. Impressively resourceful, Brian is constantly innovating in order to find food and shelter, continuously battered by animals and weather. We sit in terror as he crash-lands, fear for him as he crams down unknown berries, and rejoice with him when he finally starts a fire.

As gripping as this story is, though, it’s also a profoundly sad one. The whole novel is set in motion by his parents’ divorce, and we could interpret Brian’s presence in the Canadian wilderness as a dramatic manifestation of the effects of divorce. In a divorce, the adults have many issues they’re dealing with, leaving little time to focus on their children. The children are often left to fend for themselves as best they can, just as Brian must fend for himself in the wild.

“Children are resilient” is a common response to this observation, and there certainly is some truth to that statement. We watch Brian slowly, steadily figure out how to survive and adapt. But survival isn’t living, and it isn’t thriving. Often, survival stories will give the protagonist a time of reflection, a way to work through traumas and figure out what to do with them. For Brian, though, there is no time to think. He’s too busy fishing, hunting, chopping wood, building, and rebuilding, rarely resting except at night — and even these hours are uneasy.

There’s also a deep emptiness in the tale, and it shows in Brian’s lack of solidarity with any other creature. Unlike in many other such stories, Brian doesn’t befriend a wolf or a bird or a muskrat — and God doesn’t enter the picture. Brian is profoundly alone, and we sense a kind of hardness forming in him. This becomes even clearer when he realizes he’s not going to be found. Yes, his will to survive is strong, but he becomes a 13-year-old boy with an old man’s spirit.

In literature, there are different categories of conflict: man vs. man, man vs. God, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. This story doesn’t fall into the first two, and while we could make a case for the third option, we see Brian making his peace with nature more often than fighting it. This is especially clear when, through a curious series of events, he has access to a gun, but the thought of using it — especially after he has hunted for food using implements of his own making — gives him a funny feeling.

Which leaves us with man vs. himself. The story contains flashbacks, revealing that Brian knows his mom is having an affair — “The Secret.” His dad, however, seems to have no idea, and Brian can’t figure out a way to tell him. Brian wrestles with himself over this problem, but, as stated earlier, he doesn’t have much time for reflection. He doesn’t have much guidance, either, except through some helpful words from a former teacher and a few random books he read. He wants to be back in civilization, but the sense that he’s motivated in any way by love for his parents is missing. He may conquer himself in the woods in order to survive, but when it comes to relationships, he flounders.

And here the book ends. He has survived, yes, but at what cost? He has gained skills and experience but emotionally something is missing, making this a compelling but strangely hollow tale.