Hatchet — Chapter 7

About This Passage

This paragraph is the moment just before Brian discovers the raspberries. Paulsen uses the torn-path detail to quietly connect the raspberry clearing to the scar the plane cut when it crashed — two wounds in the forest that both end up helping Brian. Copying the passage teaches trailblazers to notice how a writer sets up a place carefully before revealing what is hidden inside it, and how the striking image of 'snags poking into the sky like broken teeth' makes the old damage feel almost alive.

Narration Prompt

Retell chapter seven in order. Begin with Brian waking up in terrible pain in the night and calling for his mother. Include the memory of the mall and the Secret, the face in the lake water, the self-pity tears, the first raspberries, the black bear with a cinnamon-colored nose, the rain, and the way Brian puts the hatchet by his head before he sleeps. End with what the chapter tells you about how Brian has changed in just one day.

Discussion Questions

1. The gut-cherry sickness wakes Brian with pain so strong he calls out for his mother. Why do you think Paulsen makes Brian's first truly terrible night in the woods come from something Brian ate himself, not from a wild animal or the weather?
2. When Brian is sick, his mind brings back the memory of his mother kissing the blond man in the mall — the Secret. Why do you think this painful memory comes back during the worst physical pain of the chapter? What does this tell you about how pain works on the mind?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide