The+River



** The River ** **By: Gary Paulsen** **Recomendation-** I would recomend this book to readers that love adventure! There are many books that Gary Paulsen has writen, quite a few of them relate to __The River__, inculiding __Hatchet__, __Brian's Winter__ and __Brian's Return__. These books are based on trues stores about Gary Paulsen's lifetime in the wilderness. In my opinion, __The River__ has the highest climax in the series. This is a book that you almost can't put down!

**Exposition-** The River first takes place in a small town around 1960 and then later, in a forest. North Woods is the forest that Brian goes to. There is also a lake and a river there. "The map was laid out in square five-thousand-meter grids-five-kilometer squares-and he saw that in some places the river wound back almost on itself inside the same five thousand square meters. But in other places, the river ran straight for a considerable distance, and he followed it through smaller lakes and what he thought must be swamps, through the darker green portions that meant heavier forest." P.78.

**Charcters-** **Brian-** Brian is a boy who is very courageous and brave. Previously, in another one of Gary Paulsen's book's, __Hatchet__, Brian was a survior of a plane crash. The plain crashed in a lake in a forest that Brian was not familiar with. Brian spent months there, including a harsh winter, surviving on his own. In __The River__, he goes back into a forest to teach Derek, a psychologist from a government agency, how he survived on his own. **Derek-**   Derek is a phychologist who trains people to survive in the wilderness at a survival school. He is a hardworking man who is not that athletic. In the story Derek persuades Brian into going back so he can teach his students the knowledge and the process of what Brian went through the last time he was in the woods (In __Hatchet__). Inciting Incident- Three mysterious men came to Brian's house one afternoon and said that they want him to survive again in a forest so they can teach his amazing survival skills to others that might get stuck in the same situation that Brian had gotten in. "Brian opened the door and stood back. There were three men, all in dark suits, standing on the front porch. They were large but not fat, well built, bodies in decent shape. One of them was slightly thinner than the other two." pg. 1.

Internal Conflict- The internal conflict was when Brian was deciding whether he should go on the adventure or not. He knows that he'll be helping people, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to go through it again. Derek, a phychologist for a government agency, and two others try to persuade him into going back again. For example, "We teach what you did, or we try to. But the truth is, we have never done it and we don't know anybody who has ever done it. Not for real." pg. 6.

External Conflict- The external conflict was when Brian struggled getting the raft down the river to the trading post. At the time, he did not anticipate how hard it would be! For instance, "The river curved left and the raft went straight, cut across the curve, and jammed into the bank." p. 98.

Climax- Brian was sleeping by the fire when a storm started. Loud cracks of lightning woke Brian and Derek. Brian woke up first and could see Derek reach toward the radio as lightning struck and hit it. Brian saw a ball of blue and then nothing, black out. "He saw the blueness, almost a ball of energy, the crack/flash of color that came from inside his mind, inside his life, and then he was back and down and saw nothing more." p. 57

Resolution- A day after the incident Brian comes to and realizes that Derek was hit by lightning and is in a coma. He knows that comas are a very serious thing and that he needs to get Derek medical attention as soon as posible. Brian reads the map that he found in Derek's suite case and sees a trading post on a river that leads off the lake. Brian decides to build a raft, tie Derek to it and sail the raft to the trading post. He does this because he didn't know how serious the coma was for example all that he could remember about comas was, "It was like being asleep except that you didn't wake up, he thought. Every thing would keep working, but you couldn't eat or drink" pg. 71.

Theme- In the novel, __The River__, by Gary Paulsen, the theme is that Brian needs to keep hope alive in order to be couragous enough to get Derek to safety and to survive. "Things were- were what they were. If the raft rolled or if Derek fell off the raft, then...well then, that was it. If not, Derek might still be all right. I have to fighure he's still alive. And if Derek was still on the raft, still alive, he was downriver." pg. 121.

Complication- Brian is taking Derek down the river on a raft and, out of nowhere, comes to a waterfall! They have no choice but to go down it. Brian falls off the raft and loses consciousness but lands on the shore. When he wakes up he franticly starts to look for Derek so he swims down the river in search of him and the raft. "He kicked off the mud and began to swim. Within three strokes he knew how tired he was- his whole body felt weak and sore from the beating he'd taken in the rapids. But he could not stop. He worked along the edge, half swimming, half pushing along with his feet in the mud. Downriver. He had to catch the raft." pg. 122. `

Guts By: Gary Paulsen

Theme- The theme of the book, __Guts,__ is Gary Paulson's lifelong adventures in survival while fighting nature which led to these stories that became the basis of __Hatchet__, __Brian's Return__, __Brian's Winter__ and __The River.__ His hero, Brian, was often shown having the same or very similiar adventures Paulson had throughout his life, that's why courage is the other main topic for this book because he had to overcome many attacks and the wilderness.

Gary Paulson's struggles with internal and external conflicts occurs often throughout his childhood and into his adult years. Living in the North woods and coming from a very poor and lonely childhood he often had to hunt for survival although many times it was for sport.

Internal Conflict- Paulsen's internal conflict in __Guts__ is the fight for survival. Often he was hunting for food. Sometimes though, when he does kill an animal, he does have a moment where he is fighting two emotions. He is sad for killing the animal and happy for the food it brings. "I felt the sadness that comes with killing when you hunt but the elation that comes with having suceeded--it makes and odd mixture of emotions." p.106 This occured when he killed a deer. It was the time he was fifteen and two miles into the woods and four miles from town. He was hunting for grouse but he suddenly heard a rumbling from the woods that was coming toward him. He got his bow ready and "the grass in front of me parted, and coming at me at a full run, was a twelve point buck (six on each side, counting later), and I saw him, not ten feet away, just as he left the ground, I released the arrow and saw it disappear into the center of his chest, just vanished into him." p. 104.

External Conflict- An external conflict in this book is Gary Paulsen's struggle with nature throughout his childhood and into his adult years. Sometimes he hunts for food and at other times he hunts for sport. In this conflict he was on an adventure for sport. Paulson was racing the Iditarod. The weather became so dangerous with the wind speed so high that he had to call for help. It was so bad that the dogs would have blown away if they hadn't been tied together."I lay with the dogs at my side and if I tried to go out and stand the wind simply blew me flat or got beneath me and blew me away. Later I heard stories of men being blown off their sleds and out across the ice for several miles before they could stop." p21

Climax- Since this is a book is many stores put together, there are many climaxes.