32 pages • 1 hour read
Gary PaulsenTracker
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Authorial Context: Gary Paulsen and Wilderness Survival Literature
Paulsen’s books range across several genres and topics, but he is most famous for his wilderness survival books, which portray the instructive power and serenity of nature. Paulsen’s love of nature began at a young age as the wilderness offered him refuge from his troubled home life. Both of his parents drank alcohol heavily, which prompted him to spend as much time as possible outside, either on the streets or in nature, even sleeping outdoors many nights. The defining moment of his childhood came when a librarian offered him a library card, which opened him up to books and the power of storytelling. After a successful career as an aerospace engineer, he quit abruptly to become a novelist and went on to be one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century.
Paulsen was a self-proclaimed misanthrope—hater of humankind—with the exception of children. He lived and traveled the rural parts of America, participating in solitary activities such as cross-country motorcycling and the Iditarod dogsled race in Alaska. Paulsen struggled to communicate with or tolerate adults, but he always had a soft spot for children, for whom he penned the majority of his wilderness adventure books. Paulsen also had a steady dislike of technology, which he believed prevented children from reading and becoming the future generation needed by the human race. His stories feature kids learning from and interacting with nature, encouraging them to appreciate the Earth both for its importance in their lives, but also as a force in its own right.
Philosophical Context: The Five Stages of Grief
Throughout Tracker, John struggles with his grandfather’s impending death. Though Paulsen makes no direct reference to them, John’s internal conflict and character arc arguably follow the five stages of grief developed in 1969 by psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. These stages are often experienced in the following order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kübler-Ross initially developed the stages to describe the psychological process of patients with terminal illnesses, such as John’s grandfather; but the vocabulary has since become popular shorthand equally applied to anyone experiencing grief, such as John.
The stages of grief offer a helpful lens through which to see John’s journey tracking the doe. While the external action of the novel is sparse—John follows a doe—Paulsen illustrates how grief is an excursion as gripping as any hero’s adventure. The stages of grief may provide readers a vocabulary to understand John’s coming-of-age as an actual process, and as a kind of rite of passage for the young man. The novel also brings readers through these stages in a way that lets them process grief alongside John. John begins the novel in denial, refusing to believe his grandfather can die because he doesn’t want to acknowledge how things would change or what life would be like without him. John also feels anger over his grandfather’s condition and having to participate in deer-hunting season without him. The experience with the doe is a form of bargaining: John hopes that in exchange for not killing the doe, his grandfather will also be spared. Depression is given the least amount of time in John’s character arc, though Chapter 12 shows John accepting his grandfather’s illness and death.
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By Gary Paulsen
