Notes

Compare and Contrast Essay

Hatchet about a boy named Brian that is 13 years old and he was on his way to see his divorced dad in Canada. Brian and a pilot are the only ones on the tiny Cessna 406 bush plane and the pilot gets a random heart attack and dies so Brian is the only one left. He tries to land and steer the plane but ends up crashing it into a lake in the forest. Brian was lost in the middle of the Canadian woods with nothing but a tattered Windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present. Brian learned how to start a fire and he figures he had to eat whatever food he could find. He had a hard time because he kept facing hard animals such as a porcupine, mosquitos, a bear, a skunk, a moose, and even worse, his shelter was struck by a tornado! He crafted bows, arrows, and a fishing spear to help him hunt. He didn’t give up and found a shelter, food, and the plane that crashed. He kept hoping that someone would save him and finally, someone did.


Old Man and the Sea is about an old man (Santiago) that liked to go fishing a lot. He never gave up trying to catch a fish or fish. He had an 84-day streak of no fish and on the 85th day, he thought it was his lucky day. Turns out it was. He set his lines and by noon, had his bait taken by a large fish that he knew for sure it was a marlin, but he was unable to pull the marlin and the marlin pulled him instead. The old man spent two days and nights holding onto the line. He was struggling and his hands were tired and painful. He determines that, because of the fish’s great dignity, no one deserved to eat the marlin. On the third day, the fish began to circle the skiff. The old man was worn out and used all his remaining strength and pulled the fish onto its side and stabbed the fish with a harpoon. While he goes back to the shore, unfortunately, sharks were attracted to the fish’s blood and the old man kills the sharks with weapons but the sharks kept coming, and by night, the sharks have almost eaten the whole fish, leaving a skeleton. Before morning on the next day, the old man struggled to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder, leaving the fish head and the bones on the shore. Once he reached home, he went to his bed and fell asleep.