Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books

Fire is representative of knowledge. It is a motif that explains man’s ability to know the wild, to make logical reasonings and assumptions about nature through observation and manipulation, and thus to conquer nature. Fire allows for safe, drinkable water and edible meat. Fire offers warmth in the cold and light in the dark. More importantly, fire offers peace and a connection to distant ancestors: “I can’t think of many things, including Iditarods or sailing the Pacific, that affected me as deeply as getting that fire going; I felt as early man must have felt when he discovered fire, and it was very strange but I didn’t want to put it out” (Guts: 123). Once man achieves fire, he sets himself apart from the natural world. Only through knowledge can one survive in nature, and fire is the brightest representation of knowledge. For Paulsen, fire also offers insight and wisdom. Sitting before a fire in the desert one evening, Paulsen has the idea for Hatchet while looking into the flames: “What if, I asked myself that night, looking into the flames. What if a person suddenly found himself in a wilderness as old as time” (147). 

In several situations witnessed by Paulsen, or events told to him, animals attack in packs. In these scenarios, no amount of knowledge, planning, or resources could prevent death. For Paulsen, these attacks are a motif that depict the inevitability of death. Many wilderness deaths can be prevented with knowledge and experience, but some outcomes, these pack attacks suggest, cannot be altered by man. Paulsen’s fatalistic view of pack attacks acknowledges the boundaries of human control over outcomes. The first instance of a pack attack is after the plane crash in the ocean where the survivors are picked off by sharks in a frenzy. The victims of this attack could do nothing to prepare for the attack or defend themselves from it. They were helpless to alter the outcome. Later, in a story shared with Paulsen, wolves attack in a pack, their ferocity made indefensible by their numbers. Pack attacks demonstrate that some outcomes cannot be altered, regardless of the victim’s level of skill and preparedness.

Paulsen dedicates much of the book to hunting, preparing, and cooking food in the wilderness. These actions help to explain the central idea that survival is a knowable and essential skill. The most important aspect of surviving is securing food. Roughly half of the book features stories about acquiring and preparing food, because: “In most of nature, the most important element in survival is finding food” (Guts: 114). Through knowledge (which he shares freely throughout the book) Paulsen believes finding food is almost always possible. Survival is never guaranteed, as luck plays a part (see: pack attacks), but chances are enhanced through knowledge.