hatchet book report summary

Main Characters

Brian robeson.

A resourceful and resilient thirteen-year-old boy who finds himself stranded in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash. Brian must learn to survive using only his wits and the tools at his disposal, including the hatchet his mother gave him.

The pilot of the small plane that crashes in the wilderness. His sudden heart attack leaves Brian alone and forced to fend for himself in the harsh environment.

"Hatchet" delves into several profound themes and offers valuable insights for readers.

• Resilience and Self-Reliance: Brian's struggle to survive in the wilderness highlights the human capacity for resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity. His resourcefulness and determination to overcome challenges serve as a testament to the strength of the human spirit.
• The Power of Nature: The novel portrays the raw power and beauty of nature, as well as its ability to both sustain and threaten human life. Brian's interactions with the natural world underscore the importance of respecting and understanding the environment.
• Self-Discovery: Through his solitary journey, Brian undergoes a process of self-discovery and personal growth. The challenges he faces force him to confront his fears and weaknesses, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of himself.

Readers of "Hatchet" are likely to be deeply moved by Brian's harrowing and inspiring tale of survival. The novel offers a compelling portrayal of the human spirit's resilience and the indomitable will to survive. It serves as a powerful reminder of the strength that lies within each individual, as well as the profound connection between humans and the natural world.

In conclusion, "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen is a timeless and thought-provoking novel that continues to resonate with readers of all ages. Through its gripping narrative and rich exploration of themes such as resilience, self-reliance, and the power of nature, the book leaves a lasting impression on its audience. As readers follow Brian's arduous journey through the wilderness, they are sure to find themselves captivated by the novel's poignant portrayal of human strength and the enduring spirit of survival.

Hatchet FAQ

What is 'hatchet' about.

Hatchet is a novel about a young boy named Brian Robeson who survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and must learn to fend for himself with only a hatchet as his tool.

Who is the author of 'Hatchet'?

The author of 'Hatchet' is Gary Paulsen, an American writer known for his young adult fiction.

Is 'Hatchet' suitable for all ages?

While 'Hatchet' is often recommended for middle-grade readers, it contains some mature themes and may not be suitable for very young children.

What are some key themes in 'Hatchet'?

Some key themes in 'Hatchet' include survival, resilience, self-reliance, and the power of nature.

Is 'Hatchet' part of a series?

Yes, 'Hatchet' is the first book in a series, followed by several sequels that continue Brian's story.

Books like Hatchet

The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Odyssey

Heart of Darkness

By Joseph Conrad

To Kill a Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

Hatchet Introduction

Gary Paulsen is a successful graduate of the school of hard knocks. From an early age, he was fending for himself, working odd jobs and camping out in the woods alone for weeks at a time. He's run the Iditarod (the famously grueling, 1,049-mile Alaskan sled-dog race) three times, trained horses in New Mexico, sailed around the Pacific in a beat-up sailboat, and lived in some of the harshest environments in the world. No big deal. Oh, and school definitely wasn't his thing: he flunked out of ninth grade, and when he made it to college years later, he quit after just a few months.

Not quite the resume you'd expect from one of the best-selling kids' writers of all time. Paulsen has written almost two hundred books since his first work, called Some Birds Don't Fly , came out in 1968. He's a triple Newbery Honor winner, and he has more than 26 million books in print. But it's not his silver-tongued prose that keeps 'em coming back for more. Nope. It's his ability to act as every kid's own personal wilderness tour guide that makes his books really special.

If you want to know what it's really like to live out in the wild and struggle with the elements, Gary Paulsen is your go-to guy. And Hatchet is your go-to book. Hatchet , the story of a boy stranded alone for weeks in the Canadian woods, is Paulsen's best-known, best-loved work. First published in 1987, it has inspired devotion from generations of kids, and it's still going strong.

In fact, the book is so popular that Paulsen has written four sequels ( The River , Brian's Winter , Brian's Return , and Brian's Hunt ) as well as a nonfiction companion book called Guts . But even with all these sequels (not to mention all the books written later by other authors inspired by Paulsen's example), Hatchet still stands as one of the best kids' adventure books of all time. We think that's saying something—don't you?

What is Hatchet About and Why Should I Care?

Walk away from your computer. No, really, we mean it. Stand up, go look out the window, and then come back. It's okay—we'll wait.

Okay, what did you see? A manicured lawn? A street with cars parked along either side? The apartment building next to yours? Whatever it was, we're willing to bet it probably wasn't anything like what the main character of Hatchet sees when he wakes up next to the lake in the morning. And it probably wasn't anything like the environment human beings have lived in throughout most of our history on this planet.

The fact is, nowadays we spend less time outside than we ever have before. You can't swing a dead moose lately without hitting another article or study about how little time kids spend outside. 

Now, we know that you're awesome—after all, you're here at Shmoop, right?—but if you're like most of us, chances are the closest you've gotten to roughing it is when you went car camping with your family at Yosemite. (And believe us, we're right there with you.)

But think about it. As human beings, we've spent most of our history climbing trees, living on the savannah, or building little huts made of sticks so we can make it through the winter. When it comes right down to it, being in nature is what's really, ahem, natural for us. It's only in the last little instant of cosmic time that we've managed to crawl up out of the mud, figure out how to construct flush toilets, and get our grubby little hands on the remote control.

So you kind of have to wonder, in our great rush to leave the world of the woods behind, is there anything else we've left behind? Anything we've lost, that maybe we can't afford to lose? Anything important, elemental, maybe even necessary to what it means to be human? Gary Paulsen seems to think the answer is yes.

So pull up a chair—or better yet, go find a nice comfy patch of grass to lie down on—open the book, and start getting back to nature.

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W hy's T his F unny?

by Gary Paulsen

Hatchet summary and analysis of chapters 1-3.

The book begins with thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson flying as a passenger in a small bush plane from Hampton, New York. He is on his way to spend the summer with his father in the Canadian wilderness—his parents recently got divorced, something that has taken a toll on Brian. While in the plane, he thinks a lot about the divorce and about a particular secret that he calls The Secret. He believes it is this secret that caused the divorce.

As he gets upset thinking about it, Brian tries to distract himself by looking around the plane. The pilot asks whether he has ever flown in the copilot's seat before. When Brian sys no, he explains that flying is not as hard as it seems, and offers to let him take the controls for a minute. Nervous, Brian tries, and realizes that he is able to steer the plane easily. It distracts him for a while, but when the pilot takes the controls back he starts thinking about the divorce and The Secret again.

The court had determined that Brian would spend the summers with his father, and the school year with his mother in New York. His father is working in the oil fields of Canada, and Brian is flying up on the plane along with some equipment that his father would need for his work. His mother drove him from the city to catch the plane, and gave him a gift to use that summer: a hatchet.

As he is lost in his thoughts, he realizes that the pilot is in distress. The pilot has begun to have a heart attack, clutching his chest and jerking around. Brian recognizes it, but can do nothing, because within moments the pilot is slumped over with his eyes rolled back in his head. Brian knows he is either dead or in some state close to a coma—either way, Brian Robeson is alone in a plane high in the air.

For a while he does nothing, shocked, and then realizes that he has to fly the plane somehow. He plays with the controls a bit and gets the hang of it, but he has no idea where he is or where he is going. Carefully he pulls the headset from the pilot's head, even though it scares him. He tries to call out for help over the microphone and gets a response, but the signal fades out and Brian cannot provide his location or flight number. He realizes he has two options: let the plane keep going and run out of fuel, or try to bring the plane down now. He has no idea how far he has diverted from their original course.

He keeps going, holding the plane at its altitude and making periodic calls on the radio. He decides to take it down and try to find a lake to crash-land at the edge of. He is preparing himself for this when suddenly the plane's engine sputters and dies and it begins to go down. Brian starts panicking, realizing he is going to die. As the plane keeps going down he spots an L-shaped lake and tries to steer the plane towards it. The world speeds up as he gets closer and closer to the ground and he crashes, the wings of the plane breaking off as it falls through the trees. It sinks down into the lake and Brian swims out of it, desperately trying to make it up to the surface.

Hatchet wastes no time in throwing readers right into the heart of the action. The first chapter begins with Brian flying in the plane, rather than building up to the incident that will pave the way for the rest of the story. At the surface level, this draws readers in immediately and keeps them hooked from the first sentence. But it also serves a deeper purpose. By neglecting to show readers any piece of Brian's life before the plane crash—we can only rely on his stories and thoughts for this information—Paulsen shows what is really important to this story. It does not matter what Bryan did before: what matters is what is happening to him right now.

Along these lines, the first few chapters of the novel tell us much more about Brian's family life than they do about Brian himself. Readers learn about his parents and their divorce, about his feelings on the various court sessions and disputes he has had to be a part of, but not yet about what makes him tick as a person. This extreme focus on his family circumstances shows what matters to Brian when he is in the real world; however, once he is in the forest, he has to abandon this focus on extraneous matters and concentrate only instead on himself and his survival.

Gary Paulsen writes many coming-of-age novels, and this is certainly one of them. The disappearance of the authority figure—the adult pilot—is the first indicator of this theme. Without the pilot, and without either of his parents, Brian will have to grow up very quickly. He cannot be a child anymore, now that he has to make important decisions that may save his life. In the process of making these decisions, Brian will reach a level of maturity that he had not before.

Based on the first three chapters, Brian is up to the challenge. It would have been easy for him to panic and lose control after the pilot's death, but instead he calms himself down enough to think rationally and come up with the best way for him to have a shot at survival. His quick thinking—flying the plane, using the radio, steering the crashing plane towards the lake—has served him well, and this resourcefulness will continue to be important over the course of the story.

These chapters introduce us to Brian, but also to another important element of this story: the hatchet. Brian's mother giving him the hatchet to use for the summer foreshadows the events to come, when a hatchet will be the most useful tool he could possibly have. With his hatchet in hand, Brian will face the reality of having to fend for himself, but still with this one essential tool from his former life at his side. The hatchet is so important that it gave this book its title; so, keep an eye out for its use as a symbol throughout the novel.

Hatchet Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Hatchet is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What challenges does Brian face regarding food?

Brian had never before had to trap or catch his own food, and he didn't know how to start a fire. He didn't know what berries were safe to eat, and as a result, he became very sick.

How long have brians parents been divorced

The divorce was only a month old.

First Read: Hatchet

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Study Guide for Hatchet

Hatchet study guide contains a biography of Gary Paulsen, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Hatchet
• Hatchet Summary
• Hatchet Video
• Character List

Lesson Plan for Hatchet

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Hatchet
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Hatchet Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Hatchet

• Introduction

• Hatchet Summary

Description

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Last Updated: Monday 1 Jan, 2024

• Book Summary

Hatchet Summary Overview

Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson leaves New York City to visit his father in the Canadian wilderness. His journey is complicated by the recent divorce of his parents and the knowledge of his mother's infidelity. During the flight, the pilot suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving Brian to navigate the plane into a crash-landing in a remote Canadian lake. Stranded and alone, Brian must now fight to survive in the wild. Initially, Brian struggles with finding food and is injured from the crash. His optimism for a quick rescue dwindles when a passing plane overlooks him. Encounters with a bear, porcupine and a skunk provide new challenges and lessons in survival. Brian learns to make fire by striking his hatchet against a stone. He finds sustenance in turtle eggs and manages to catch fish. However, he experiences despair and even contemplates suicide, but he resolves to keep fighting for his survival. Brian's situation worsens when he is attacked by a moose and his shelter is destroyed by a tornado. Undeterred, he builds a raft to retrieve a survival pack from the sunken plane, despite a haunting encounter with the decaying pilot. The survival pack contains various useful items, but Brian prefers his self-taught survival methods. However, he does find freeze-dried food and a faulty 'Emergency Transmitter.' As he prepares his meal, a plane lands on the lake, and to his surprise, he is finally rescued.

Brian Robeson, a thirteen-year-old boy, is the only guest on a small plane heading from Hampton, New York to Canada's north woods. His initial excitement about the flight fades as he considers his parents' recent divorce. He's disturbed by the lawyers' upbeat descriptions of how his life will change. He also thinks about something he refers to as "The Secret," whose meaning remains unknown to us. Brian tries not to let the pilot, a middle-aged man whose name Brian can't quite remember, see his tears. When the pilot gives him a chance to steer the plane, Brian hesitates but eventually accepts, momentarily taking over the controls. The pilot's comment about his aching shoulder pulls Brian back to thoughts about his parents' breakup. Brian's father is unaware of why his wife wants to end their marriage, and he doesn't support the decision. The court orders that Brian will stay with his mother during the school year and his father in the summer. Brian's musings are interrupted when the plane shakes. He notices an unpleasant smell and realizes the pilot is unwell. Brian, who's en route to visit his father, a mechanical engineer, recalls the journey to the airport. During the trip, his mother tried to coax him into sharing his troubles, but he couldn't tell her about "the secret." Upon reaching Hampton, his mother gave him a hatchet for his summer stay in the woods. To appease her, Brian attached it to his belt where it's stayed throughout the flight. Suddenly, the pilot jerks in his seat, forcing Brian to appreciate the severity of the situation. The pilot is having a heart attack and struggles to use the radio. After a terrifying silence, Brian grasps the reality of the pilot's apparent death. With the plane soaring thousands of feet in the air, Brian struggles to figure out his next move.

Post the heart attack of the pilot, Brian is paralyzed with shock. The plane is in autopilot mode, and Brian realizes he needs to take charge. Overwhelmed by the cockpit controls, he tries to operate the radio. In the process, he accidentally jostles the wheel but manages to stabilize the plane. He tries to communicate through the radio but loses the signal before conveying any crucial details. He repeatedly tries to establish contact but fails. Thinking about landing the plane, he realizes he doesn't have enough time to strategize. The engine of the plane abruptly fails, forcing an unexpected landing. He steers the plane downwards and throws up.

Brian is certain he won't make it as the forest unfolds before him instead of open water. He spots an L-shaped lake in the nick of time but isn't sure if he can get there. Unexpectedly, the plane crashes into the tree line and lands in the lakes, with water quickly filling the cockpit. Brian, terrified, screams and throws up mid-flight but manages to unfasten his seatbelt and swim upwards. On reaching the shore, the pain and fatigue overwhelm him, and he falls unconscious.

Brian relives the moment he uncovered "The Secret" - witnessing his mother's infidelity while out with his friend Terry, igniting feelings of rage and shock. As he comes back to reality, he takes in the wilderness around him and remembers the plane crash. Feeling sore from the crash injuries, he drifts off to sleep. Upon waking, he can hardly believe he survived the crash, especially considering the pilot's unfortunate fate. He is assaulted by mosquitoes, leaving him covered in painful bites. Reflecting on his close shave with death, he notes how narrowly he missed a large nearby rock. Taking in the natural sights and sounds, Brian drifts back into sleep.

Waking up with an incredible thirst and hunger, Brian quenches his thirst with lake water, still unable to believe he's stranded in the middle of nowhere. He comforts himself with the thought of being rescued that very day, remembering his English teacher Mr. Perpich’s lessons on the power of positivity. This memory helps Brian fight off despair. He takes notice of the eerie silence of the wilderness, something he's never experienced in the city. Suddenly he realizes that he may have changed the plane's direction when he reached for the pilot's headset, meaning rescue might not come soon. Feeling panic set in, Brian fights to stay calm, vowing to find food and construct a shelter.

Brian remembers his playtimes with his best friend Terry in the city park, where they used to pretend to be lost in the woods and make a lean-to shelter. This memory triggers him to build his own shelter. As he gathers materials and finds a suitable overhang for his lean-to, he feels his weakness and hunger intensify. The simple task of finding food, once a given, now turns into a complex challenge. Amidst this, he contemplates telling his father "The Secret" linked to his parents' divorce once he's back home. In his search for food, Brian stumbles upon some red berries. Despite their bitter taste, he consumes them until he isn't hungry anymore. Without matches, starting a fire proves difficult, so he focuses on strengthening his shelter, weaving sticks into the walls. After consuming an excessive amount of berries, he feels ill but manages to fall asleep.

Jolted awake from a nightmare involving his mother, Brian suffers a severe reaction to the large quantity of berries he had ingested the day before. He's haunted by the memory of his mother's infidelity. He falls asleep again and when he wakes up, he heads down to the lake where he sees his own reflection. Disturbed by his disheveled appearance and injuries, he succumbs to his sorrow and cries. Feeling hungry, he consumes more of the red berries, this time carefully eating a smaller amount. Searching for a different food source, he discovers a raspberry patch and encounters a bear. Initially terrified, he soon realizes the bear poses no threat. He gathers and eats some raspberries, saving more for later. With the encounter fresh in his mind, he keeps his hatchet nearby as he drifts off to sleep.

Brian wakes up in the middle of the night to a strange noise in his shelter. He hurls his hatchet, only to experience a sharp pain in his leg. He's been attacked by a porcupine, leaving his leg filled with quills. After painfully removing each quill, Brian breaks down in despair, feeling a loss of hope. But once he's cried out, he realizes that self-pity and tears won't change his situation. This becomes a crucial survival lesson for him. As he drifts back to sleep, Brian dreams of his father and his friend Terry. His father seems to be trying to communicate a critical message to him, but Brian can't understand what it is. Then Terry appears, starting a charcoal fire while barbecuing in a park. Brian wakes up confused by the dream, unable to grasp its meaning. In the morning, as Brian is stretching, sunlight catches his hatchet, causing it to shine like flames. It's then that he links the dream and his current situation; his father and Terry were guiding him on creating fire. Determined to succeed, he strikes the hatchet against a rock and watches the sparks. Brian decides he will figure out how to generate fire with his hatchet.

Brian struggled more than expected to create fire from sparks. He had to make numerous adjustments before finally succeeding. He found birch bark to catch the sparks, yet he needed a more effective material. Despite numerous attempts, the fire kept dying. Feeling frustrated but determined, Brian recalled from school that oxygen aids fire growth. He blew on it, and after figuring out the right force, the sparks turned into flames. He fed the fire with more wood, celebrating his achievement. He saw the fire as a companion and a protector from wildlife and mosquitoes. Being alone in the wild, he wished to share the joy of his fire with someone else. Brian thought about his parents, wondering if his mother was with the man he'd once seen her kiss.

Fire provides Brian solace so he's hesitant to leave it. He spends his day collecting wood to maintain it, then falls into a profound sleep. A nighttime noise rouses him briefly, but no danger presents itself and he slips back into sleep. At daylight, he discovers tracks leading to the lake. Tracking them, he discovers a mound of turtle eggs. The realization that these eggs could be a good food source hits him. Recalling his Uncle Carter's habit of eating raw eggs, he decides to do the same out of necessity. Despite the odd flavor, he consumes several eggs, plans to ration the rest, and keeps hoping for his impending rescue.

Brian keeps busy by organizing the eggs, tidying up his shelter, and piling up firewood to prevent feelings of despair. He catches sight of his own reflection in the lake, acknowledging his physical changes - loss of extra weight and darker skin. More importantly, he recognizes his mental shift. Brian's perception of his environment has sharpened, helping him understand the forest better. His experience in the wilderness has created a new connection between his mind and body. On top of a hill beside the lake, he's struck by nature's beauty. It inspires him to realize he can fish from the lake for sustenance. Upon observing closely, he finds an abundance of fish in the lake. His initial attempts to catch them with his hands prove futile, leading him to the conclusion that he needs a fishing spear.

Brian dedicates numerous hours to crafting a fish spear, which ultimately proves unsuccessful. Needing a better method to catch fish, he opts to create a bow and arrow. During his wood hunt, he narrowly misses stepping on a bird, which swiftly launches into the air. This prompts him to consider hunting these birds, which he names "foolbirds" due to their size being slightly less than that of chickens. As he's considering this, a plane soars above him, filling him with temporary hope of rescue. Despite his desperate attempts to attract the plane's attention, it continues past him and disappears. Losing sight of the plane plunges Brian into deep despair and he feels a sense of loneliness and desolation, doubting he'll ever reunite with his loved ones.

While out hunting for 'foolbirds', Brian senses a nearby creature. He discovers a majestic wolf and its pack who then depart into the hills. After the distressing incident of a plane flying past him unnoticed, Brian plunges into despair, attempting suicide with his hatchet. Surviving the attempt, he decides not to entertain thoughts of death again, leading to the rebirth of a "new Brian." He finally unravels the mystery of catching the lake's abundant fish by understanding the refraction of light underwater and adjusting his aim. The first day he catches fish results in a satisfying feast, filling him with hope from his success and the promise of plentiful food. This hope, though, is no longer centered on rescue, which he perceives as unlikely. Instead, he nurtures a "tough hope" of surviving on his own, armed with his newfound knowledge of the wilderness.

A skunk intrudes the area where a turtle laid eggs, provoking Brian to shout at it. The skunk retaliates by spraying Brian, leaving him temporarily blind. Brian dashes into the lake to cleanse himself. He soon realizes the skunk has devoured the eggs he kept near the shore. From this episode, Brian extracts two wisdoms: to build a robust shelter and to secure his food. Over several days, Brian fortifies his shelter with extra wood and creates a food shelf high in a tree, out of bears' reach. Yet, food scarcity remains a challenge. Pondering over this, Brian decides to build a mini-pond for storing the fish he catches, lured by the leftovers of his previous catch. Brian's thoughtful actions reflect his efforts to not just find immediate sustenance, but also ensure future food storage.

In the wilderness, Brian gauges time by the incidents he encounters rather than conventional timekeeping, although he does keep a tally of days on a stone by his shelter. The significant events make up his real timeline, such as the day he first had meat. Despite surviving on berries and fish, Brian yearned for more substantial food, like meat. His eyes often landed on the foolbirds abundant around him, but they proved difficult to capture due to their elusive nature. Deciding on using his spear instead of his bow and arrow, Brian learns to creep up sideways and strike in the nick of time, bagging his first meat. Cleaning and cooking the bird was more challenging than anticipated, reminding him of the past when his mother would cook for him. He set up a system to roast the chicken over a fire and eagerly awaited his first bite. The anticipation led to him almost eating a piece that was still raw, but he reminded himself of the necessity of patience. Once the meat was fully cooked, Brian relished his meal more than any he had ever consumed.

Brian reflects on the major milestones since his crash, including crafting his first successful arrow and hunting his first rabbit. He rotates between hunting rabbits and foolbirds, providing sufficient meat for his meals. Over time, he becomes skilled at trapping foolbirds, even once capturing one with just his hands. However, a serene moment at the lake is interrupted when a massive moose charges him, injuring his ribs and shoulder. He collects his weapons and contemplates the assault before succumbing to sleep. In the middle of the night, he is awakened by an approaching tornado. It slams him against his shelter, which is destroyed in the storm. Vulnerable without his fire, Brian is besieged by mosquitoes. He spends the rest of the night considering the dramatic shift in his circumstances. Despite the moose attack and the tornado, Brian remains steadfast, determined to rebuild with his hatchet, the only tool he has left. As dawn breaks, Brian assesses the damage. The tornado had strewn the remains of his shelter across the area. Gazing at the lake, he sees the tail of his crashed plane sticking out of the water, which reminds him of the dead pilot. Overwhelmed by grief, he feels compelled to pay his respects, but struggles to find the "right words." Instead, he opts to quietly wish the pilot a peaceful rest.

Brian labors to fix his shelter and stockpile more firewood. Overwhelmed by fatigue, he's about to sleep when he recalls the pilot's survival pack that might still be on the plane. He imagines it could contain food or useful tools and decides to seek it out the next day. His last thought before sleep is an image of the plane's tail. The following day, he energizes with some fish before building a raft to reach the plane. He struggles to bind the logs of the raft, finally succeeding by weaving branches between them. As it gets dark, he struggles to move the raft and decides to continue the next day. Feeling autumn approaching, he retires to his shelter. The next day, he heads for the plane on his raft. As he secures the raft to the plane, a chilling thought hits him: he might encounter the pilot's body underwater.

Overwhelmed by his inability to enter the plane, Brian hits it hard, causing the aluminum shell to open. He furiously hacks at the other sections with his hatchet, which suddenly slips from his grasp and sinks to the lake's bottom. Despite struggling with limited breath, Brian retrieves the hatchet from the lake's floor. Resuming his cutting into the plane, he plunges beneath the surface to bring out the survival pack. To his horror, he spots the pilot's head, skin gnawed off by fish. Distressed, Brian vomits in the water and with great effort, dislodges the pack from the plane and surfaces. Drained by his ordeal, he hauls the survival pack back to his shelter and instantly falls into a deep slumber.

Brian explores the survival pack the following day, finding numerous helpful items such as a sleeping bag, cookware, matches, a knife, a compass, medical supplies, a hat, and fishing gear. He is startled to discover a hunting rifle, which he feels alienates him from the wilderness he has grown to appreciate. He is hesitant to use the rifle and other tools despite the ease they could provide, as he has developed a fondness for his self-reliant lifestyle. Brian experiences mixed emotions upon discovering the pack. He stumbles upon an emergency radio transmitter, which appears to be ineffective, leading Brian to believe it was damaged in the crash. The pack also holds several dehydrated food packages, which Brian decides to slowly consume after indulging in one gourmet meal. Amidst his meal preparations, he hears an overhead engine and watches a plane land on the lake. The pilot steps out, telling Brian he picked up the transmitter signal. The pilot puts two and two together, realizing he has found the missing Brian Robeson. Overwhelmed and taken aback, Brian introduces himself and offers the pilot some food.

Brian eventually finds out that his rescuer is a fur trader inspecting Cree trapping sites. Following the crash, Brian has lost significant weight, which he manages to keep off for years. His experiences in the wild have left a lasting impression on him, particularly his heightened sense of observation and ever-present awe for food. Initially, his survival story garners media attention, but it quickly fades. Brian often dreams about his time in the wilderness, mostly fond memories. Surviving the winter would have been an arduous task. His parents are overjoyed by his survival and briefly reconcile, but soon revert to their separated lives. Despite intending to many times, Brian never reveals "The Secret" to his father.

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A 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.

Before You Read

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapter 16-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Chapters 7-9 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 summary.

Brian suddenly awakens, screaming for his mother. He is overcome with abdominal pain. He has to crawl out of his shelter and suffers through vomiting and diarrhea for “over an hour” (63). He falls in and out of sleep, dreaming of his mother and the affair. In the morning he decides he made himself sick by eating too many “gut cherries” (65). He goes to the lake to wash himself and is disturbed to see his bloody, swollen reflection. Overcome with emotion, he sits on the bank crying for a long time. Afterward he returns to his shelter and notices that he already calls it home.

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To the conspiracy-minded alternative health practitioner, everything was great until the Flexner Report was published. Humanity was crushing diseases with herbal remedies and natural potions until 1910 when the “medical-industrial complex” came together and  “criminalized natural therapies.”  We are now afflicted by Rockefeller medicine, where ill citizens are hooked on expensive drugs that never heal them and the truth about the benefits of herbs is being hidden by paid-off politicians and academics.

This alleged fall from paradise can all be blamed on the original sin of that darn Flexner Report.

I would wager that most of the people hurling insults at this century-old book have never actually read it; I did, because I wanted to know what the fuss was all about.

The Flexner Report was commissioned because the state of medical education in the United States and Canada was dire. A young educator was hired to visit all of North America’s medical colleges and report back, which led to much-needed changes and some unfortunate consequences.

And, yes, he did have some harsh words for what he called “the unconscionable quacks.”

A medical degree  and  a free trip to Europe!

There is a reason why leeches and purging agents are now rarely used in medicine: the discipline has evolved over the millennia, and Abraham Flexner found himself at the beginning of a new and exciting era.

Medicine in the Western tradition began with Hippocrates and Galen. It began with dogma. “Facts,” Flexner wrote in his report, “had no chance if pitted against the word of the master.” Those who despise modern medicine will claim it has remained dogmatic to this day; but while practitioners can be set in their ways and new findings can linger before they are adopted, we are far from the pontifical medicine of old.

With the rapid development of anatomy in the 1500s, medicine moved from dogma to empiricism. This meant that instead of doctors simply parroting what they had been taught by the rock stars of their field, they would learn from their own experience. They would observe and they would treat accordingly. This approach was more welcoming to discovery, but it was still hard for doctors of that era to properly disentangle diseases that superficially looked the same.

What propelled the discipline forward was science. We came to realize that the human body obeys the laws of biology: it grows, reproduces itself, and dies in predictable ways, and by understanding this underlying biology, the doctor would be better able to prevent and treat disease. Scientific research fed clinical practice, and the medical student, no longer limited to watching, would  do  as well.

Like medicine, medical training itself had changed over the centuries. It started as a system of apprenticeship, where a trainee became indentured at a young age to a doctor and ran his errands. Eventually, he would get to learn the secrets of his master’s trade. In Europe, the teaching of medicine would move to the lecture halls, which were host to anatomy demonstrations, and many American students would cross the Atlantic to benefit from this enrichment in Paris or Edinburgh. It wouldn’t take long before American doctors saw a way to sprout a similar system stateside and reap its financial benefits.

They were called proprietary schools. They were privately owned, with their teachers splitting the profits among themselves. They could rent a cheap hall, get some inexpensive benches, and recruit students who didn’t even have a high school diploma. “A school that began in October,” Flexner wrote, “would graduate a class the next spring.” Their facilities were poorly stocked, with barely-existing laboratories. The money that didn’t end up in the founders’ pockets was used to make all sorts of wild promises in the advertising material. One of these medical colleges swore it would gift its graduates a trip to Europe!

Following this explosion in questionable proprietary medical schools in the mid-1800s, change was thankfully afoot, but something major was needed around which this change could crystallize.

Quality over quantity

The Flexner Report’s actual title is  Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.  It was commissioned by industrialist Andrew Carnegie’s policy and research foundation. Much has been made of the report’s ties to Carnegie and to Rockefeller, whose own foundation alongside eight others would pour a lot of money to implement the solutions proposed in the Flexner Report. Flexner’s brother, Simon, was also a friend of John D. Rockefeller, Jr, and he directed the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research for more than three decades. Seen through our modern lens, this friendly alliance between medical education and capitalistic interest can trigger a fair amount of skepticism, if not outright conspiracy theories. It was in the wealthy elite’s interest to downplay the impact of social disparities on health and to promote the simpler idea that the human body was a machine whose broken parts could be mended by the right science-informed technician. But as we’ll see, the report itself did not stick to this narrow viewpoint.

Abraham Flexner, whom the Carnegie Foundation recruited for this massive work, was not a doctor; he was a teacher. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Flexner studied Greek, Latin and philosophy as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, and this university made a profound mark on him. It would become the template for Flexner’s medical education revolution.

After teaching high school, Flexner opened his own private preparatory school, which served as a laboratory for his educational convictions. After receiving a Master’s degree in philosophy from Harvard, exploring Europe, and writing a book on American education, he was recruited by the head of the Carnegie Foundation. His mission: to tour the 150 medical schools in the United States and Canada and report back in writing on what their problems were and how to solve them. Already, the deceptive marketing of many of these schools and their deficient scientific education was known; Flexner was to document it. His report was scathing.

Flexner wrote of the dissection rooms where cadavers were as dry as tanned leather. He denounced the medical colleges claiming to have access to a hospital for their students when that was not the case. Many schools did not have full-time faculty and lacked proper laboratories. At the North Carolina Medical College, in Charlotte, Flexner was told that asking about laboratories was futile: their students were “all thumbs,” better suited to be farmers.

His year-and-a-half survey of North America resulted in a three-tiered list of medical colleges.

Sixteen were in tier one, requiring at least two years of college for admission and doing their best to meet the standard set by the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Fifty were salvageable and required of their student applicants a high school diploma. The rest, mostly found in the south of the United States, was a complete loss, in his opinion. “For the law, if enforced, would stamp them out.” (In case my colleagues are curious, he admired McGill’s own medical school, calling it “excellent” and being impressed by its anatomical and pathological museums, as well as its library. Its medical budget at the time was a mere $77,000.)

Flexner’s short-term solution to the proliferation of inadequate, for-profit medical schools was to shut them down and fund the ones that had stricter standards and that were affiliated with a university. He recommended quality over quantity, with fewer but better equipped schools graduating fewer physicians that were better trained. His influential book-length report was used to justify an influx of $154 million in the medical education system over the course of nearly two decades.

While prioritizing quality is commendable, the consequences of the Flexner Report were not all positive. Almost all women’s and historically Black medical colleges  shut down in its wake , and women were nearly eliminated from the physician workforce until the 1970s. Medical schools were consolidated in large urban centres and required more money and education to get in, which meant that middle- and upper-class white men had an easier time becoming physicians. And closing a bad medical college in the American South might have been smart in the short term, but if it was not replaced by a better school, it simply created an educational desert.

But if the Flexner Report was focused on improving  medical  education, why are so many homeopaths and naturopaths mad about it?

Made-up minds

In chapter 10 of his report, Flexner goes for the jugular of what he calls the “medical sects.” Those were competing philosophies of medicine, like homeopathy, osteopathy, and eclectic medicine (a plant-based approach). Flexner correctly observes that unlike the doctor who wants facts and not dogma, “the sectarian […] begins with his mind made up.” He denounces the contradiction in many of the best sectarian colleges, where students underwent two years of chemistry, biology, and physics, before entering clinical training and suddenly being introduced to a pseudoscientific principle that contradicted what they had just learned.

Flexner was not single-handedly responsible for shutting these colleges down. In the ten years before the publication of his report, the 22 homeopathic colleges in the U.S. were trimmed down to 15. Much like the scientific revolution changing medicine, the Flexner Report did not begin the transformation but simply galvanized it.

Yet, Flexner, perceived as the hatchet man that tore down much of the medical education infrastructure, has become a lightning rod for misconceptions and bad arguments. He is sometimes accused of having denigrated the value of public health, which is simply false. In his report he writes of bad environmental conditions that breed disease, such as a contaminated water and food supply. The good doctor’s role, he writes on page 68, “is equally to heal the sick and to protect the well. The public health laboratory belongs, then, under the wing of the medical school.” To make the point even clearer, Flexner notes that “the physician’s function is fast becoming social and preventive, rather than individual and curative.”

And while a hyperfocus on science as the answer to medical problems can lead to inhumane treatment (and certainly had a role to play in eugenics and unconscionable medical experiments like Tuskegee’s), Flexner understood the importance of care. His ideal doctor required “insight and sympathy” in order to heal. That priority may have gotten lost in the implementation of his plan, but it is present in the report, black on white.

When the sectarians he condemns criticize his report, they often claim that he transformed medicine from a holistic view of the entire body into a myopic practice that only focused on broken body parts. This is a convenient argument for them. As scientific research nourished clinical practice, our body of medical knowledge grew, forcing doctors to specialize. But there is no real growth in so-called alternative medicine. There is no  need  to specialize when you believe there is only one true cause to all diseases. Whether it’s an alleged chiropractic subluxation or a blockage of the supposed life force called qi, it’s just an obstruction. All these practitioners need to do is find the source of the blockage and declog the pipe, much like a plumber. As Flexner pointed out, though, this is not science but dogma masquerading as knowledge.

As for the loss of holism in medicine, it still exists in family medicine, and especially in group practices, where integrating knowledge from specialties is commonplace. But given the incredible amount of knowledge generated in scientific medicine, it is absurd to expect every doctor to know everything.

The Flexner Report of 1910 was an imperfect catalyst that helped move medicine into its science-informed era. It would take many more decades, though, before the randomized controlled clinical trial was adopted as a gold standard for determining the worth of a treatment or preventative. The report also exacerbated inequalities in access to medical education in an attempt to reward the most rigorous institutions. Nonetheless, it argued that the best place for medical education was not in a privately owned and poorly regulated makeshift school but in a university, where foundational research could provide new solutions to the healer.

The kind of quackery that Flexner decried has not really gone away, despite what he predicted, and its practices certainly have not been criminalized.  Osteopathy  raised its standards in the United States and became, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to medicine. Homeopathic colleges are rare but  their hyperdiluted concoctions  are still widely available. Some dubious professions, like naturopaths, have acquired an unearned legitimacy in some states and provinces, and the concept of integrative medicine—of adding junk practices to actual medicine to get some sort of best of both worlds—has unfortunately made  massive strides in academia .

The battle against medical sectarianism has not been won. There is a lot of work left to do.

Take-home message: - The Flexner Report, published in 1910, crystallized a revolution in North America toward teaching a type of medicine that was strongly influenced by scientific discoveries - The claim that Flexner downplayed the importance of public health and preventive medicine in his report because he was working for the Carnegie Foundation is simply false - The claim that medicine stopped treating the whole person after the Flexner Report came out but that natural healers still do is false: family medicine is holistic; medical specialties exist because of our increased knowledge; and natural healing practices have no need to specialize since they often believe there is one true cause to every disease, which is wrong

@CrackedScience

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