Symbolism In Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken

I enjoyed reading Unbroken, a book that showed preservation, redemption, and admiration all in one character. Throughout the book, Laura Hillenbrand displayed how a human could overcome grueling struggles, but she also conveyed how traumatizing experiences such as a death of a loved friend or receiving beatings from a ruthless prison guard can scar a person’s mind for a long time through the use of symbols. One of the symbols that Unbroken portrayed is alcohol. Many people who have anxiety and stress use drugs as a way to avoid reality. Similarly, Louis drank alcohol which brought him “a pleasant numbness” from his horrible memories from the Japanese prisons (Hillenbrand 347). By showing the use of alcohol, Hillenbrand conveyed to the audience that many people, especially veterans, find alcohol as the only solution to cope up with traumatizing events from the past. In addition, Hillenbrand explained to the readers that alcohol can further damage a …show more content…
Generally, birds roam around many places with no restrictions. In contrast, Hillenbrand uses the Bird as a prison guard to show the restrictions forced upon the prisoner by a prison guard. Although the Bird’s beatings of Louis were over, his presence stayed in Louis’s mind as he felt “the buckle cracking into his head” and “pain like lightning over his temple” from Louis’s previous beatings in his nightmares (Hillenbrand 373). As a result of his beatings, Louis exemplifies how a person has psychological restrictions to leave a difficult situation in the past because he or she lived through a painful event. Moreover, the Bird’s life after the war rose the Bird’s “tension of living incognito” from being caught for physical abuse of the POW (Hillenbrand 364). Comparatively, Hillenbrand portrayed the restrictions of the Bird’s freedom to live a sound and peaceful life. Overall, many life occurrences limit the person’s ability to let go of scary moments from his or her