Analysis Of Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

Louie Zamperini is the type of person that has been through a lot of pain and happiness, making Louie much more complex of a person than most people. Louie is a person who started off as mischievous and then turned that into power for running, and won a lot races breaking records. He went to join the Air Force for the army, and then one day his plane crashed into the ocean and only him and 2 others survived the crash. He was next the found by the Japanese and was sent to a POW camp, and was a victim of many war crimes. The book “Unbroken ” by Laura Hillenbrand, shows Louie’s two character traits that most defines Louie are tenacious and fractious.

It was apparent, throughout the story, that Louie was a survivor. There were countless events throughout the story in which Louie´s ability to survive is seen clearly. One of these occurred when Louie clocked the fastest time for the mile in NCAA history. Louie was able to do this despite being spiked, clubbed, and trapped from moving forward in the race. This is apparent when Hillenbrand writes, “He burst through, blew past the race leader, and, with his shoe torn open, shins streaming blood, and chest aching, won easily”(44). Another example of his survival trait appearing strongly in the story occurred in the raft. After lying in a raft for weeks, Louie was still

Well-known nonfiction author Laura Hillenbrand, in her best-selling biography, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, describes the chilling reality faced by those living in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. As the title suggests, this is not the typical World War II tale of hardship that ends in liberation; rather, it follows the main character, Louis “Louie” Zamperini, through his childhood, Olympic performances, and military career leading up to his captivity, as well as his later marriage and many years of healing. Hillenbrand's purpose is to impress upon her readers the scale of this tragedy as well as remind them of the horror that so many nameless soldiers endured. She adopts an emotional yet straightforward tone in order to get readers to sympathize with the characters and truly understand what they went through. To do so, she manages to make the unique story of one man represent the thousands of others going through the same tragedy.

Everyone at some point in their life encounters something where they are tested to their utmost ability. Everything in one’s life has led them to where they are and the decisions they will make in the face of these hard times, defining themselves and their life. It may be hard for some to make these crucial choices, but one can only hope that life has prepared them for these moments. Louis Zamperini is one man who remained resilient throughout all the hardships he had to face, becoming an admirable role model for anyone going through tough times. He was an ordinary man but he displayed the honorable traits that all humans are capable of if they dig deep enough within themselves.

In part one of Unbroken begins with Louie’s childhood and his young adulthood. In chapters 1-5 Hillenbrand introduces us to Louis Zamperini who was born in 1917 to Italian immigrants. Louie grew up in Torrance and was not the best behaving child. Louie started smoking

As indicated by Laura Hillenbrand in Unbroken, ¨A month earlier, twenty-six-year-old Zamperini had been one of the greatest runners in the world, expected by many to be the first to break the four-minute mile, one of the most celebrated barriers in sport. Now his Olympian’s body had wasted to less than one hundred pounds and his famous legs could no longer lift him. Almost everyone outside of his family had given him up for dead¨ Louis’s life had gone to pieces all in two or three months. He was tormented, stranded, and broken. He was broken until he was saved and it make him come to a realization of his life. No individual ought to be abandoned or regarded as the way he seemed to

As soon as he was captured Louie was beat and tortured. The main enemy he had was the bird. Every day he would beat him for no reason. He went to camp after camp being followed by the bird. In the novel Unbroken it says on page 244, “From the moment that Watanabe locked eyes with Louie Zamperini, an officer, a famous Olympian, and a man for whom defiance was second nature, no man obsessed him more.” Another quote on page 301 is, “Lying on the ground before them was a thick, heavy wooden beam, some six feet long. Pick it up, the bird said...The bird called a guard over. If the prisoner lowers his arms, the Bird told him, hit him with your gun… Louie had held the beam aloft for thirty-seven minutes.” This first piece of evidence shows that the bird was out for Louie from the start. The second piece evidence shows that Louie was pushed to the max but had resilience and was able to go through this. After the time Louie was in the prisoner camps he still was not broken. Even if his physical state showed

After conquering horrific tragedies during World War Two, Louie Zamperini commented, “I didn’t know it then, but my persistence, perseverance, and unwillingness to accept defeat when things looked all but hopeless were part of the very character traits I would need to make it through World War II alive.” (Hillenbrand, FIGURE OUT IF AND WHERE IT IS IN THE BOOK.) In Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken, he showed absolute determination to survive insurmountable obstacles. Throughout his life and everything he endured, he was determined he was going to make it through. In fact, Louie decided he would be whatever he put his mind to. If he was going to run, then by golly he was going to run, and if he wanted to make it out of a POW camp, then

During the second World War, an olympic record holder, Louie Zamperini, was one of the few men that got shot down into the ocean and was stranded for 47 days on a lonely, little raft. The great American hero we all have heard of didn’t start out like you would have thought. He was a young scoundrel who was influenced by his brother to run for something better than away from is problems. After years of running and going to the German Olympics to set the best lap run in the 5,000 meters, Louie had gone into the Air Force and had gotten into trouble at a Japanese POW camp after a crash. The book Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, expresses Louie’s life exceptionally well, especially

First of all, the theme of survival was demonstrated throughout the book. Starting off with Zamperini surviving from the eugenics by transforming himself into an Olympian athlete in Part I, to the plane crash in Part II, next the 47 days of drifting in the Pacific Ocean in Part III, then the Japanese POW camps in Part IV, and finally overcoming his mental illness in Part V were all examples of the theme survival being demonstrated. In addition, the theme of resilience was part of the protagonist Zamperini’s personality. At the Japanese POW camp, Naoetsu, the Bird, a sadistic Japanese POW guard, tortured him and stripped away his dignity. The Bird has let Zamperini perform tasks such as holding up a six foot beam after discovering Zamperini was desperate for medical care. Being told to hold the beam or else being whacked by the guard’s gun, Zamperini held it for 37 minutes. Considering his physical condition during that time period, it was incredible how Zamperini’s mental state helped him through the difficulties of the Japanese POW camp. Lastly, Hillenbrand integrated the theme of redemption mostly in Part V. The following quote from that section explains it all. “It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over” (p.386). After the war, Zamperini had nightmares of the Bird, sank into

read. Louie Zamperini faces challenges such as Having to go to war when he was

During the next two years, Louie endures physical and psychological torture by his captors. During this time, a major character is introduced, Mutsuhiro Watanabe (a.k.a. the Bird), who is a head Japanese captain at the camp where Louie is being taken to be held prisoner. He makes the creepy guard from The Green Mile seem like a guy you'd love to bring home to dinner. On the day Louie arrives to the camp, The Bird recognizes Louie for his Olympic performance and forces him to race against one of his soldiers; however, Louie is frail due to lack of food and water and is humiliated in defeat. The Bird is very hard on him, and is the predominant source of mental and physical abuse from which Louie suffers at this camp. Louie, being the strong-willed fighter that he is, continues to endure and remain physically and emotionally unbroken until he eventually catches a break when The Bird is offered a better job at another camp. After the war interferes with his camp, Louie is moved to a different camp, which ends up being the same camp where The Bird had transferred. The Bird continues to be ruthless and relentless towards Louie and directs his wrath at Louie far worse than any other prisoner, especially when he determines that Louie is attempting to boost the morale of other prisoners. In this time period in the book, hope and motivation are shown as Louie continues to fight through the abuse at the hands of his

This is where they were starved, beaten, and worked almost to death. The Bird is one of the people who worked at the POW camp, he hated Louie. He beat Louie more than anyone else at the camp. This was a terrible experience. Louie and Phil had been announced dead, so no one knew they were alive.

In World War II, 30,000 POWs died (forces-war-records). Louie Zamperini was one of the lucky few that survived. All across Louie’s life he has had to keep many of the traits that he had acquired during his childhood and teenage years. Especially when he was captured by Japanese officers after being stranded at sea for 47 days. Using these traits he survived many POW camps with “The Bird”, one of the most brutal officers that Louie knew of. In Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken, Louie Zamperini has gained many attributes, the two most prominent being that he’s optimistic, and that he’s courageous, and many of his actions throughout Unbroken seem prove so.

pulled himself upright after”(186). In this case, it sounds like Louie is trying to show the bird