Strength, honor, soldier, Olympian, and Christian are words that describe Louie Zamperini. Laura Hillenbrand writes about the life of Louie and the traumatic events that he endured through World War II. In Laura Hillenbrand’s novel, “Unbroken- A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” readers will explore how Louie Zamperini’s character and inner strength helped him become an Olympic athlete, survive imprisonment as a Japanese Prisoner of War (POW) and turn his life around upon returning from war. The book begins with Louie as a young boy as a rebellious youth who liked to cause a lot of mischief around the neighborhood of Torrance, California. He began smoking and drinking before the age of ten and would constantly be
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Of all the violent and vile abuses that the Bird had inflicted upon Louie, none had horrified and demoralized him as did this. If anything is going to shatter me Louie thought this is it" (Hillenbrand 291).
At this point Louie was forced to endure an especially horrific punishment at the hand of the Bird. He is forced to crawl around a pig’s sty and in order to survive he must eat the feces of the pigs that he must pick up with his bare hands. This torture is not only disgusting it is dehumanizing. Louie is made to act like an animal or something even lower than an animal. The Bird is trying to break Louie’s spirit and will to survive and this torture tries to get him to think of himself as a mere beast. At the end of the war after the bombing of Hiroshima the POW were abandoned by the guards who just up and left. When the prisoners were eventually brought in from the camps they were in really bad condition. Christina Twomey shares the observation of the men as they were brought …show more content…
Some find emptiness, frailty, even dark, impulses. But others find wondrous virtues - courage, resourcefulness, self- sacrifice, daring, ingenuity, the will to solider on when will is all they have left. These are the virtues that turn history, and these are the virtues that enable individuals to prevail in the supreme trials of their lives. It is in times of superlative hardship that individuals live their epic adventures, stories that trill, fascinate, inspire and illuminate” (Hillenbrand
Of all the violent and vile abuses that the Bird had inflicted upon Louie, none had horrified and demoralized him as did this. If anything is going to shatter me Louie thought this is it" (Hillenbrand 291).
At this point Louie was forced to endure an especially horrific punishment at the hand of the Bird. He is forced to crawl around a pig’s sty and in order to survive he must eat the feces of the pigs that he must pick up with his bare hands. This torture is not only disgusting it is dehumanizing. Louie is made to act like an animal or something even lower than an animal. The Bird is trying to break Louie’s spirit and will to survive and this torture tries to get him to think of himself as a mere beast. At the end of the war after the bombing of Hiroshima the POW were abandoned by the guards who just up and left. When the prisoners were eventually brought in from the camps they were in really bad condition. Christina Twomey shares the observation of the men as they were brought …show more content…
Some find emptiness, frailty, even dark, impulses. But others find wondrous virtues - courage, resourcefulness, self- sacrifice, daring, ingenuity, the will to solider on when will is all they have left. These are the virtues that turn history, and these are the virtues that enable individuals to prevail in the supreme trials of their lives. It is in times of superlative hardship that individuals live their epic adventures, stories that trill, fascinate, inspire and illuminate” (Hillenbrand