“In truth he felt relieved when the food was gone. It had softened him, made him want more and more, and he could tell that he was moving mentally away from the woods, his situation. He started to think in terms of the city again, of hamburgers and malts, and his dreams changed.” 

Brian’s relationship to food changes temporarily when he has access to the food rations from the plane crash. He finds that eating these foods makes it difficult to return to surviving on fish and small game once the rations are gone, and nothing seems to satisfy him for a time. Here, Paulsen’s food motif shows the contrast between having access to grocery stores and restaurants for food, versus harvesting one’s own food from the wilderness. Brian cannot be fully focused on his survival situation because he the foods he cannot have distract him.

“All sounds, any movement went into him, filled his eyes, ears, mind so that he became part of it, and it was then that he noted the change.” 

In the woods, Brian’s senses heighten, and he uses them to understand and react to his surroundings. He’s learned that every small sound and detail is important for survival in nature. His ability to sharply tune in to his surroundings allows him to survive, showing the importance of always listening to and learning from nature. 

“But Brian had become a part of nature, had become a predator, a two-legged wolf. And there was a physics to it, a basic fact, almost a law: For a wolf to live, something else had to die. And for Brian to live it was the same.” 

As much as Brian dislikes killing animals for food, he recognizes that just like the wolf, he cannot survive without it. Brian’s moral scruples about killing highlight one of nature’s great paradoxes: No person or animal can live without the