Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken

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.

The art of survival is something that is not easily learned. For some, however, it is something that comes from a natural desire to be defiant and rebellious. In the novel Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, protagonist Louie Zamperini fights for survival through a number of trials that are presented to him. His life takes him from being a troubled child, to an Olympic runner, to a bomber lost at sea, to POW in some of the worst camps Japan could conjure. Louie not only survives these trials, he stands up and goes directly against the normality and ease of submission and faces his adversity head on. Throughout the novel, Louie shows that his ability to survive stems from his natural urge to rebel and defy anything that he deems too controlling in his life.

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.

The American industrialist Henry Ford once said, “ Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes of bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character , and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.” In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, the fearless Louis Zamperini epitomized Ford’s words when, he survived imprisonment for over 2 years only after his World War II bomber crashed into the middle of the Pacific . Thankfully Louie’s fearlessness helped him return home and share his story with the world.

The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.

The book Unbroken details the struggles and hardships Louie Zamperini found as a P.O.W. in Japan during World War Two. Laura Hillenbrand wrote ths nonfiction novel about Zamperini's life as a troublemaking youth, a soldier, and his post bellum life as a family man and community leader.         Louie Zamperini was born in Olean, New York to parents native to Italy. His family moved to Torrance, California, where he became a troublemaking youth who was always fighting and getting into trouble. Zamperini was known as a public nuisance to the town, until his brother, Pete, put him on the right track.

Here, Louie Zamperini who never gave up, never quit, and never stopped fighting. Louie, as a young boy was a thief, never really cared to listen to anybody. Laura Hillenbrand put much detail into Unbroken. She’d call him and talk to him about him and everything he had gone through.

The American author Og Mandino once said,”sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.”In Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken, the considerable Louis Zamperini exemplified Og Mandion’s out look beating as a world war II soldier,took on anything handed to him from shark attacks to a prisoner of war in japan. It was Zamperini’s Determination that pushed each other to continue to survive in which Hillenbrand convyed his captivating biography.

Louie Zamperini was a young boy who lived in Torrance, California, living his early years with a troublesome attitude. His childhood was filled with hatred, anxiety, sorrow, but in the end, it all led to happiness. Louie was a young man competing as an olympic athlete, until he went off to war as a bombardier. As he and his crew members flew a B-24 over the Pacific ocean, his life had turned upside down. The character traits of optimism and resourcefulness that Louie demonstrates in Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand, helped him get through the hardest times in life.

While reading the book Unbroken it is easy to become connected to the famous Louie Zamperini. In his early childhood Louie would run very often whether it was from his parents, girls or stealing, he soon gained an amazing became an olympian. Winning 8th place for his 5000m race after he finished training. After his new olympian life WW2 rolled in and ended his stardom of fame. Louie enlisted and became what people call a “bombardier”. His friend Phil and him live a tremendous trial through the war after being stranded in a lifeboat in the ocean for nearly 47 days. They get rescued, but only to become prisoners of war, the story then goes over his new life and the hardships he faced through each day.

Winston Churchill once said,”success consists of going from failure without loss of enthusiasm.”Louie Zamperini, an outstanding olympian and WWll hero, keeps enthusiasm throughout his struggles and that is possibly what saved him. Louie Zamperini is portrayed in the novel Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, first as a young boy who smokes cigarettes, drinks, and takes his frustration out by fighting. In his twenties he goes to war, then returns a different man. Through his many years of suffering, it was hard but he became a better man for it.Louie Zamperini goes through a great deal of suffering in WWII which leads to him redeeming himself.

Unbroken by Laura Hilenbraud is the biography of Louis Zamperini, the book shows the limits to what a man will endure to survive against all odds to come home to his family. During World War two POW camps were used on both sides and at the time the vast Empire of Japan had signed the Geneva Conventions limiting the treatment of enemy combatants, many to all camps were subjected to inhumane conditions that the men who had to endure the atrocity’s fought every day to keep their dignity. Over the course of history, camps were used to hold enemy combatants who have surrendered.

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.

Laura Hillenbrand is telling us the story of Louis Zamperini. She begins from his childhood and goes on through his life with the things he does prior to the war. Although she explains these things, the main conflict in the book is Louis’ survival through the war and after. Louis learned many things about himself growing up and taught himself many key characteristics that would later save his life.

Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken is a literary masterpiece. Throughout this compelling story of Louis Zamperini uprising and downfalls, laura tells his story of how he survived his way through the grueling view of world war II and racing. Laura Hillenbrand displays many aspects about Imagery, diction, syntax and tone. There were many instances during the book Unbroken where the writing was impressive, effective and interesting.