Samuel is a young adult that grew up in the woods. He became a part of the woods and the woods became a part of him. He felt more secure in the woods than he did in his own cabin with his parents and the other people in the settlement. I will be analyzing how Samuel as a person develops threw out the events in the story.
In the beginning of the book he is just a normal settler’s child. He hunts, dose chores and helps around the settlement. He hunts mostly and when he goes hunting he brings back food for the whole clearing. The other settlements help with his chores for the food he cannot do the chores and go hunting all day. He feels more at home in the woods he loves hunting and tracking. He has to go deeper into the woods every time he goes in to them. This is because the deer and other game is not venturing near the clearing for fear of being shot.
Samuel is at a new clearing that he has never been before and he is awestruck by the beautiful landscape. He hears a branch break behind him and he sees a black bear takes aim but he notices smoke coming from the direction of his settlement. He started running as fast as he could towards his settlement he had eight miles to run. He ran eight miles in an hour and a half he got to the edge of the clearing and stopped.
When he looked at the clearing he could smell something it was something he had only smelled once. He smelled death he walked to his cabin it was burned down. his first thought was look for his parents he walked in a circular pattern spreading outwards toward the edge of the clearing. He found eight bodies, he gave each one of them a proper burial. None were his mother and father where none of the bodies. He looked for tracks he found tracks leading away. All he could think of now was killing the invaders. Undying rage crept up from within him until he started to mourn he wept all night he cried himself to sleep that night.
Samuel changed in the way you get when someone in your family gets hurt by another human. His thoughts all consisted of killing the people that took his parents. When before his thoughts were tracking and killing the game doing his chores helping with the garden. In all Samuel changed in a violent grief stricken way that will ultimately lead him to harm and possibly death. When he dose find the people that took his parents I don’t know how he will deal with them. He is only on kid that has a double barrel musket and has never killed a man.
