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adrienne maree brown’s New Essay Collection Loving Corrections Offers a Realistic, Compassionate Script for Liberation

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In Loving Corrections , activist adrienne maree brown ’s new collection of essays, the often fraught work of correction—which is to say, effecting some personal, professional, and/or political change, sometimes by confronting other people espousing harmful ideas—is rooted in a place of mutual trust, and a shared vision for the future.

This isn’t to say that the vision is always rosy. The author, who uses she/they pronouns, speaks openly about the dangers that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Blackness, climate denial, and other social scourges pose to our very survival—but never without emphasizing just how much adjustment and healing can accomplish. Vogue spoke to brown about drawing inspiration from Grace Lee Boggs and Octavia Butler, making “loving corrections” within familial relationships, and finding political solidarity in their home base of Durham, North Carolina. The conversation has been edited and condensed.

Vogue : How did the process of putting this book together compare to previous projects?

adrienne maree brown: This one felt more like realizing: Oh, I’m up to something in the writing that I’m doing, and I could pull all of that something together and understand it better. I had been writing these essays, a lot of which came out of some heartbreak or some moment of feeling like, We’ve got to do better than this , and one came out as a word for white people relinquishing the patriarchy . I’d also been writing a column for Yes! magazine called Murmurations that was really giving me a chance to dive in deeper about accountability. As I was looking at those sets of work, I was like, there’s something aligned here, which feels very rooted in the way I used to facilitate. That’s the loving correction—the thing of, okay, we’ve gone off course, and we can get ourselves back on course. There’s a way that I can hold your hand and we can disagree, and we can keep moving forward towards something that lands with us together, rather than something that lands with us at war.

For those who haven’t read the book yet, would you be able to offer an example of an opportunity for “loving correction” that might come up in everyday life?

One of my favorite pieces in the book is a conversation I have with my sisters. We noticed that every time we would get together for a family gathering as adults, as much as we anticipated being together or could not wait to be in each other’s presence, we would get in a fight within the first 24 hours. It would be explosive, petty, irrational, you know? And we were like, Why is this happening? Then after the fight, we would cry, we would make up, and after the storm, we would find out all these things that were happening in each other’s lives that were impacting our capacity to show up. We decided to shift our process, so now, whenever we land with each other, we make time on the front end of the visit and everyone in the family knows the sisters are going to go do their sister check-in. We take our hour and a half—usually there’s three of us—to share the headlines of our lives and where we really need support, where we need flanking, where we just need to be seen. We talk about what has changed in us and what’s moving on the tectonic plate level since the last time we were together, and it has really transformed what it means for us to all be in the same space.

Do you have favorite writings or pieces of art that helped guide you in putting Loving Corrections together?

It’s hard to be self-referential, but Emergent Strategy is a text that, even though I wrote it, I’m constantly trying to understand it and practice it, so almost all my other books try to dig into some aspect of that book. Work from Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, who were Detroit organizers and part of the Black Power movement, were really influential for me. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz has always been a really moving text for me, in terms of its asking, What are the simplest ways we can be in right relationship with each other ? And then I’ve been really working with Buddhist texts. I was really working with looking up the belief systems of the Anishinaabe peoples when I was living in Detroit and trying to understand interdependence. And then there’s always Octavia Butler’s work, which provides seeds for thinking about what it means to be in a community that intends to stay together and have a future.

The essay collection talks a lot about the power of community—politically speaking, but also between siblings, friends, and comrades of all types. What are some of your favorite community-minded practices that keep you going, artistically and personally? I just moved from Detroit to Durham in 2021, and one of the practices I’ve been in here is game nights. I regularly invite people—most of them are from social justice movement spaces, but there’s also artists and writers and other folks that I’m getting to know here—so that we can all just be people. This emerged for me after that initial phase of pandemic lockdown, where even as an introvert, I was really hungry for other people’s presence and for laughter in the home and the kind of unexpected things that happen in the kitchen when the group is in the living room—you know, the humanity. I really love that practice. And then I would say solidarity is my other major community-building practice, where I don’t want to be asking people to have to make a case to me why their people matter, or why their issues matter. I really take seriously when people ask me to show up in solidarity with them, and think about how I can do that in a way that’s meaningful, and how I can let it be a place that I learn.

I know there’s a lot to feel dismal about in the world right now, but are there examples of that kind of solidarity that are giving you hope?

I tend to try to look for the seedlings even in times of war or devastation, and some of the things that I’ve been really moved by are Palestinians figuring out ways to desalinate ocean water and grow food even under the onslaught that they’re under. Then in the US right now, I’m finding a really beautiful solidarity happening where people who are really struggling in this election season are turning toward the most vulnerable, here and abroad, and asking, “How do we make sure that the moves we’re making actually attend to their needs?” And I find that really moving. Solidarity doesn’t mean that we choose one community over another; it means that we have to hold all the different communities we’re part of in the balance, and I see that right now with Black folks showing up with Palestinians in solidarity, showing up with anti-Zionist Jewish people in solidarity, showing up in solidarity with trans people, showing up in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people, showing up in solidarity with children who could get pregnant in the next four years. I live in Durham now, and I’m really moved to be in a city that passed a ceasefire resolution. I’m really moved to be in a place where music and culture and mothers were at the center of that organizing.

Is there any group you particularly hope this book makes it to?

I hope it makes it to your racist uncle. [ Laughs .] There’s a wide range of places where we can use this technology of staying connected while having different opinions and moving through them. It’s not always a polite or gentle thing to do, but it is a necessary part of our humanity, I think, to learn this skill. I want this book to be something that everyone who sees themselves as part of movements for change can pick up to remember that the ways people interact in comments online are not necessarily the ways we’re going to change the world. I hope that people who do social justice work find that this book is useful for reaching beyond our normal spaces and reaching back to family, reaching out to community, and bringing more people in. We need to be growing, not shrinking, and shaming and yelling at people shrinks them. We want to be growing people’s souls. We want to be growing people’s values, and we want to be growing our community.

Loving Corrections

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by Gary Paulsen

Hatchet themes.

The most prominent theme in Hatchet is one of survival, since Brian spends the entire novel fighting to stay alive after he is stranded in the forest. Brian's actions, successes, and failures illustrate the important roles that resourcefulness, quick thinking, adaptability, and perseverance play in survival. This theme is particularly resonant with readers because most of Paulsen's target audience has never had to fight for their survival in this way before.

The entire novel takes place in the great, remote outdoors, and as such, the theme of understanding and respecting nature is hugely relevant. In order to stay alive, Brian must learn the ways of nature, understand its inner workings, and, essentially, become a part of it. He respects the other animals in his space and they respect him. He takes only what he needs to survive, never wasting anything. These practices send an important message to readers to respect the environment around them and appreciate the various ways in which it can provide for humanity.

Coming-of-Age

This novel is an example of a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age story. The young, naive Brian who finds himself in a plane crash is not the same person who emerges from the forest two months later. He matures a lot over the course of the story, developing a new way of thinking and a new appreciation for the simple pleasures that most people take for granted. He comes to terms with the Secret that he keeps, accepting his parents' divorce rather than mentally fighting against it. Brian's time in the forest has transformed him into someone new, with wisdom that had not been there before.

One thing Brian learns very quickly while in the forest is that he will get nowhere by feeling sorry for himself. He thinks of his old English teacher's insistence on constant positivity and determination in order to keep himself going, and this gives him the strength and outlook he needs to tackle the problems that constantly come his way. Whenever Brian starts to lose this positivity, like when the search plane flies over without stopping, he accomplishes nothing, so he quickly develops the ability to keep himself thinking positively in the face of failure.

Hunger and Food

Brian’s consuming hunger and his need to find food in order to survive drive nearly every decision he makes in the forest. He makes tools in order to catch food, a fire in order to cook food, and a sound shelter in order to protect his food; in the process, he learns firsthand how hunger and food drive all natural processes in the forest. This is especially eye-opening for readers because most will never have experienced the kind of hunger that Brian does in this novel—this account makes it more difficult to take food for granted.

City vs. Wilderness

The question of the wild forest's difference from the big city Brian left comes up repeatedly during this novel. Brian constantly finds himself having to adjust his city lifestyle for one more suited to his natural surroundings. This often proves to be difficult since cities are environments of abundance and overstimulation, where Brian constantly had everything he needs right at his fingertips. In contrast, he must go out and work for even the simplest of needs in nature. He must even change his way of thinking, remembering that while city life is often driven by randomness, every decision made in nature happens for a reason.

Isolation and Loneliness

As soon as the pilot dies and the plane crashes, Brian is completely and utterly alone. On top of fighting for survival, he must come to terms with the truth of his isolation and battle off feelings of loneliness that could potentially cripple him. Most of the time, Brian manages to keep himself busy enough not to think about how alone he is, but there are some instances—notably after he makes the fire and calls it his friend—in which it becomes clear that, just like anyone would, Brian is craving human companionship.

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

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Survival — Hatchet: Survival, Transformation, and Resilience

Hatchet: Survival, Transformation, and Resilience

• Categories: Survival

About this sample

Words: 624 |

Published: Mar 8, 2024

Words: 624 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Embracing the brutality of nature, internal struggles and epiphanies, overcoming trials.

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By Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen's ‘Hatchet’ tells the story of Brian Robeson, a thirteen-year-old boy still finding it hard to believe his parents have become estranged, now thrown into another turbulence when he crash-lands in a wilderness.

Article written by Chioma Julie

Degree in M.C.M. Awarded Best Graduating Student in Literature-in-English at UNISEC.

After the pilot flying him to Canada on his routine visit to his father dies, Brian has to take control of the plane. He tries to use the transmitter and gets through once; however, that does not materialize into much or anything at all. Finally, he crash-lands into a wilderness.

‘Spoiler-free’ Summary of Hatchet

With the hatchet (a gift from his mother) and the will to survive, Brian faces each day in the wilderness as it comes, sometimes with hope or hopelessness, courage or fear. He comes face to face with death so many times. He endures wild animals, bad food, tornado, mosquitoes, ants, and so on. The fifty-four days Brian spends in the desert become life-changing. According to him (and we could see that too), after day 5, he was reborn.

Hatchet Summary

Warning – This article contains important details and spoilers

The novel begins with Brian Robeson on his way to Canada on a routine visit to his father. Gifted a hatchet by his mother, Brian boards the plane controlled by a middle-aged man whose name he never really did catch. Thousands of feet above land, the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies. Brian is left alone to control the plane. He has to make tough decisions; he either lands on anything he sees below now or waits for gas to finish and crash-lands. He decides to go with the latter. The transmitter hasn’t been of much help, and he is alone.

Eventually, he runs out of gas. He stared death in the face continuously for his first few days in the wilderness. Viciously attacked by the porcupine and having the rescue plane come and go without finding him, he feels he has survived the worst. He still has more coming for him, but they would now meet him tougher and more prepared.

Brian builds himself a place to stay, an abode, what he’d now go on to call his home. He does this with the help of the hatchet. Nature already took care of most of it anyway, his “home.” With the hatchet (the precious gift from his mum, a gift he didn’t seem to like very much when it was given to him) he builds fire and tools for hunting.

He makes mistakes and learns very quickly from them, because in there in the wilderness, there were no small mistakes, and every mistake was life-threatening. Instead of treating the skunk as the predator that it is, he makes the mistake of treating it as if it were the cute ones from TV. The skunk blinds him for two hours and eats all the turtle eggs he’s got.

Severally, Brian faces death and survives—the porcupine and skunk, the bear, the wolves he nods and smiles at (which he’d later learn were not troublesome at all, and this explains why they left him. But, better safe than sorry), the moose, the tornado and so on.

Brian learns to be proactive. He learns to do away with fear, to be patient, and to think things through. Brian becomes more sensitive, he could now tell sounds apart now and tell when danger was approaching. He becomes more thoughtful and more appreciative. The wilderness toughens him up, as much as it humanizes him.

On day 53, he retrieves the survival pack from the plane after the tornado hit. The tornado (the same one that almost tore him apart) brought its tail out. In the pack, he sees goodies, lots of them, things which, to him, would last forever. He finds a first aid kit, a knife, pots, a frying pan, cutlery, fishing tools, a transmitter (which he thinks is no longer working), a lighter, and even a rifle. It makes him feel so powerful like he didn’t need to do most of the things he had to do to survive.

It was very much like putting the power of life and death in his hands. He didn’t like how some of these things changed him, especially the rifle. He drops it to deal with the emotion later and to prepare for a feast. Just as he is about to get comfortable feasting, a rescue plane comes. Apparently, the transmitter had been working all along. He makes to offer the pilot some food.

Out of the wilderness, there is so much buzz about his experience and even the promise of a film (which was yet to be fulfilled). But it all dies down soon. He engages in research to know better some of the things from the wilderness: the berries, the raspberries, and the other type that nearly ended him, the animals—apparently the bird he thought to be foolish and called so, was actually called the foolbird. Quite close.

Brian Robeson lost seventeen percent of his body weight while in the wilderness. He gains six percent back and would likely remain that way, lean. The predictions have it that assuming the winter met him there, he would likely not have survived. It’d simply have been too harsh for him. He now often dreams of the wilderness. No, not bad dreams. He almost had hope that his presence would make his parents reconnect, but within a week or so, things were back to normal for his family, whatever normal means.

Is the story told in ‘ Hatchet ’ true?

No, ‘ Hatchet ’ is not a true story. It is a young adult, coming-of-age adventure fiction; however, Gary Paulsen tapped from his wealth of experience. With the way he often wrote about the wilderness, it is clear he was fascinated by it. His experiences in the wilderness inspired a lot of stories from him, and one of them is ‘ Hatchet .’

What would you consider most ironic in ‘ Hatchet ?’

The hatchet, the gift from Brian Robeson’s mother, the gift he didn’t care much about, ended up saving his life. This has to be the most ironic thing in ‘ Hatchet .’ Without the hatchet, even the strong will to survive would likely not have taken Brian so far.

How is ‘ Hatchet ’ structured?

‘ Hatchet ’ has a total of 195 pages with no illustrations. It is in prose form and has a total of nineteen chapters. Gary Paulsen employed a simple writing style, language, and sentence structure for ‘ Hatchet .’ This is commendable because simplicity is key.

Is ‘ Hatchet ’ a children’s novel?

Yes, ‘ Hatchet ’ is suitable for children, so it is a children’s novel; however, it is also suitable for other demographics. Young adults and older ones can and should also avail themselves of ‘ Hatchet .’

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About Chioma Julie

Chioma is a graduate from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She has a passion for music, movies, and books. Occasionally, she writes to unwind.

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Adversity and Growth

At the start of the book, Hatchet ’s protagonist, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson , is a privileged city boy who is accustomed to the comforts of home and shocked at the unexpected changes brought about by his parents’ divorce. Brian initially views such adversity as a negative force that ruins the things he values. However, after a tragic plane crash that leaves him stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness, Brian finds himself facing much greater adversity…

Independence vs. Connection

The opposing forces of personal independence and connection with the natural world play a key role in Brian’s journey. At the beginning of Hatchet , thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is upset about his parents’ divorce but takes his immediate safety for granted, trusting the kind pilot to navigate to their destination in Northern Canada, where Brian is to spend the summer with his father . However, the pilot’s fatal heart attack creates a situation in which…

The Natural World

After a terrifying plane crash that leaves thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson alone in the wilderness to fend for himself, he becomes acquainted with a rich, complex natural world that was previously foreign to him. Even after he is rescued at the end of the book, Brian’s interactions with that new world continue to shape him in profound ways. At first, the wilderness around Brian appears chaotic to him, just as his life in New York feels…

The Power of Language

Although he is isolated from all human interaction during his time in the wilderness after a tragic plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson frequently turns to language as a coping mechanism and survival tool. Brian’s ability to verbalize what he is going through is pivotal at many points throughout the story, and the words he chooses often define the way he proceeds in the face of challenge. By repeatedly emphasizing the importance of language in shaping…

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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.

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

How does Brian’s English teacher influence him? How does Brian learn to stay positive and keep moving forward?

Brian notices himself changing during his time in the woods. What kind of changes does he undergo? Why?

Brian often talks about luck. Does Brian have good or bad luck? What does the novel say about the concept of luck?

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