Unbroken Character Analysis

“To live in bitterness is to be chained to the person who abused you, your emotions and actions arising not independently, but in reaction to your abuser. Louie became so obsessed with vengeance that his life was consumed by the quest for it. In bitterness, he was as much a captive as he’d been when barbed wire surrounded him” said Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Unbroken, in regards to the main character Louie Zamperini. In the novel, after Louie was released from the POW Camp Naoetsu, he tries to return back to normal life in Torrance by meeting and marrying a girl named Cynthia and also by returning to the track to run. However, Louie reinjures his ankle while running a two-mile and can't run ever again. He suffers flashbacks, nightmares, …show more content…
In bitterness, he was as much a captive as he’d been when barbed wire surrounded him.” was what Laura Hillenbrand said in regards to Louie Zamperini, who had been unable to let go of his tormentor, Mutsuhiro “the Bird” Watanabe. The quest for vengeance, in my opinion, did consume his entire life. The only thing on his mind was to kill the Bird, when he can't fulfill his quest; he spiralled into alcoholism and his life fell to pieces because of it, and finally the quest for vengeance prevented him from seeing the true way to get better. At the end of the novel, Louie himself even sees himself that the quest for vengeance against the Bird ruined his life. He sees this at the very end of the novel after sermon Billy Graham saves him. He wakes up in the morning and says he feels “cleansed” of the Bird and won't be seeing him ever again. He got rid of everything he said he had during his ruined years, and felt profound peace. So even Louie realizes that his quest for vengeance ruined his life. He finally realized something that he couldn’t figure out ever since he returned home. "He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird had striven to make of him" but that he is