Dignity In Unbroken

During Louie’s time at the POW camp, one guard, called the Bird, was out to get him. Louie showed resilience in this trouble by speaking up to avoid getting himself and others hurt.

Laura Hillenbrand chose to present Unbroken as the life story of an Olympic runner who happened to be captured as a prisoner of war, rather than a man whose only story is that of the war. However, much of the focus is his experiences in several different Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, and how it affected the rest of his life. Hillenbrand walks the reader’s through Louie’s life to help them understand and empathize with what he went through. The time spent on his childhood and career is meant to get the

Months passed with little action, however one day on a mission in search of a missing plane , Louie’s plane crashed in the middle of the Pacific due to engine failure. With little supplies, Louie ,Mak , and Phil survived 33 days , before sadly Mak passed away. On July 14 Louie and Phil were captured by the Japanese; thus turning them into P.O.W.S . Moving from prison to prison, Louie faced his biggest problem yet: The “Bird”. Despising Louie, “ the Bird” treated him like dirt.”Pick it up , the Bird said. With some effort, Louie hoisted it up, and the Bird ordered him to lift it higher and hold it directly over his head. Louie heaved the beam up” (301).This happened to occur after louie was assigned to watch and make sure a sickly goat would not die. With no food to give the goat, Louie shared his although he had minimal to share. This was his punishment for the goats death. After 37 mins, “ He felt his conscious slipping, his mind losing adhesion, until all though knew was a single thought; He can’t break me. Across, the bird had stopped laughing”(302). Holding up the beam was a hard to do, considering he was also getting hit by an officer at the same time. As Fearless as Amelia Earhart, Louie stood up against cruelty and injustice, even when it “threatened “ his life .4 and a half years of being a P.O.W, later Louie was freed from the

Louie grew up in a small town, he was a rebel child who stole things and started fights. All he wanted to do was run away because he always had his parents or his brother lecturing and yelling at him. However, Louie had a very special gift in which he never put to work. Thankfully for his brother, he got him back on track. Louie’s gift was running, he was so fast and could never stop. Louie continues to compete and break world records soon leading him to go to the olympics and he tries to break the world record of the timed mile. His career was stopped and taken over when the second world war two broke out, and he enters the army. He becomes a bombardier. On his first mission, a battle occurs between him and his captain, however they managed to land the plane safely. Then they are placed onto a new plane that eventually gets shot down, Louie was one out of three who survived. These three men had to figure out how to survive even though they were flustered about the whole situation. One ended up dying but Louie stayed strong and was fighting for his own food to survive. Everything was going smoothly, they were surviving for a pretty long time but it quickly shifted when the japanese find them. The Japanese shuttle Louie and his

This tone, however is not appropriate for the dire, life threatening situations in Unbroken and is therefore used solely in Seabiscuit. For Hillenbrand states “it became unclear who was stalking whom” when describing Howard’s relationship with the press (Seabiscuit 132). This lighthearted wit is woven throughout Seabiscuit, helping to keep the reader interested and the story enjoyable. In Unbroken, Hillenbrand uses a more serious, emotional tone. She pours emotion into every sentence allowing the reader to easily connect with Louie. For example, when Louie is at the prisoner camp, Hillenbrand writes that Louie was “sickened and starving, his will fraying away” and that all Louie had was “the faint hope of the war’s end, and rescue, to keep him going” (Unbroken 291). While Seabiscuit’s story and struggle is easy to connect to, the fact that he is a horse makes it difficult for the reader to emotionally be immersed in what Seabiscuit may be

Watanabe, who’s nicknamed is “The Bird” beats Louie daily with his fists, a kendo stick or even his belt. The Bird would often starve the prisoners, humiliate, and use them for slave labor. When the allies finally defeat Japan Louie and the camp members are recused and the Bird disappears and goes into hiding to avoid being punished as a war

From a very early age, Louie Zamperini was a visible young man. His charismatic/rebellious ways, and his athletic accomplishments continually put him in the spotlight, but years in Japanese POWs camps slowly eroded his visibility. He, like so many others in captivity, experienced efforts to make him “invisible.” During WWII, POWs were systematically stripped of their dignity in the camps of Japan, and as Hillenbrand writes, “without dignity, identity is erased” (189). Dehumanizing tactics by Japanese guards deny prisoners of their dignity and humanity. In

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

Even when the weight of the world is coming down and doubt is setting in, there still are powers to help carry on. Louie Zamperini, a famous Olympic athlete, was dragged down to a low level when he was captured by Japanese forces and suffered under horrendous conditions in the many POW camps he stayed at. Throughout all of life’s trials, he survived, due to his strong resilience and agency. He wanted to live, and even though he may have wanted to give up, he had plenty of things to live for. In Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses both internal and external conflict to show the theme that people can stand up against enemies even when the odds seem stacked up against them.

“The Bird was no longer his monster, he was only a man” (Page 379). This stated quote explains how Louie went from plotting to kill the Bird, to forgiving him which was due to the speech that Bill Graham had spoken. Louie remembered a prayer he made on the raft quoting, “If you will save me, I will serve you forever” (Page 375). This memory caused Louie to find God and realize that he is “unbroken” from surviving the plane crash, to living on the raft, and finally through the torture gave by the Bird at the POW camps. Not only did Louie forgive the Bird for his actions against him, but he had forgiven Sasaki and the other guards at the POW camps as

In chapter eight of Unbroken, the narrator follows the description of Super Man’s bombing of Wake by describing the dangers of war, specifically in the American Air Corps. After describing multiple instances of Louie’s friends who have died in combat and the very real risks that are associated with flying in combat, the narrator follows with this quote, emphasizing how unlikely rescue at sea was. Although “the military was dedicated to finding crash and ditching survivors” (90), “the improbability of rescue, coupled with the soaring rate of accidental crashes, created a terrible equation” (91). This quote, and much of this chapter, is a foreshadowing of the events that occur with Phil, Louie, and the rest of the crew of the Green Hornet. By

In The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers exposes what going away to war, losing a friend, and ultimately losing your purpose in life feels like through the thoughts and actions of the main character John Bartle. Bartle understands what really goes on during the war. The civilians back home fail to recognize the severity of the changes that the soldiers go through. Throughout the book Bartle carries a tremendous amount of guilt over losing his best friend Daniel Murphy. He does not understand why certain soldiers survive the war and others do not.

Louie had conquered the hardest challenges of his life, but it wasn’t over yet. In this example, Louie’s father’s own words help readers determine the effect of Louie’s courage on other people:” ‘Those Japs couldn’t break him,’ Anthony said. ‘My boy’s pretty tough, you know’ ” (392). Although the government had told Louie’s family that he was dead, they had never once given up on him. One March afternoon, Louie met a beautiful woman named Cynthia Applewhite, consequently falling in love with her. After knowing her for less than two weeks, Louie asked her to marry him: “She told him told him that she’d help forget his past, and he grasped her promise as a lifeline. ‘If you love me enough,’ he wrote back, ‘I’ll have to forget it. How much can you love?’” (350). Despite the hardships they might face together, Louie had enough courage to marry Cynthia no matter what. Louis’ nightmares were often visited by the Bird, and he developed a habit of drinking to cope with the post traumatic stress of the war. All he could think of was murderous rage and hatred towards the Bird. Cynthia filed for a divorce, but told Louie she would stay with him if he went with her to see a Billy Graham show. For the first time in years, Louis remembered the promise he had made to God when he was floating in the Pacific. A leap of faith and undying courage prompted him to make a life altering decision and accept Christ. A changed man, Louis had the courage to give others an opportunity to change also. In 1950, Louis returned to Japan to forgive his former captors whom he had once hated. Mutsuhiro “the Bird” Watanabe was the only one who did not agree to meet