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Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand Analysis

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Author, Laura Hillenbrand was quoted for, “Without dignity, identity is erased” (Hillenbrand 189). Louie Zamperini, olympic runner and WWII hero, went through the stripping of his identity and survived to tell the tale. The novel Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, is the story of Zamperini’s life, of his running adventures to fighting for survival during WWII, and returning home an unfamiliar man. Suffering through imprisonment has left Zamperini with a loss of identity, which was countered with a faith in God. The time spent imprisoned by the Japanese, the suffering stripped both Louie and his friend Phil’s dignity away. Soon after landing in the Marshall islands, Phil and Louie were imprisoned and tormented. It started with eating off the ground, “...Louie crawled about their cells, picking up slivers of biscuit and putting them into their mouths” (Hillenbrand 185). The Japanese believed being captured by the enemy is a man without his dignity. As a result of …show more content…

One day his wife had convinced him to go see Billy Graham, a evangelical preacher, to help Louie through his difficulties. He stayed through the second visit, despite his wish to leave. He stays and experiences an epiphany, “...Louie felt rain falling” (Hillenbrand 382). The rain he thought he was really was a representation of himself being cleansed. Louie believes that God saved him so Louie could serve him. This realization transforms his life, this allows him to past all his demons haunting him. “...If you will save me, I will serve you forever...It was the last flashback he would ever have” (Hillenbrand 382). Louie then keeps his promise and devotes his life to Christianity. He had gone home that night to dispose of all his liquor, and the next day started reading his

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“A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don't ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren't blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.” In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, the competitive spirit of Louis Zamperini is demonstrated when, against all odds Louis goes, from being a thief as a kid to competing in the Olympics in Berlin. Tragically as a young adult during World War II his bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean Louis’s future started to head for the worst as he was stranded for 47 days. Needless to say it was Louis's own competitive spirit that allowed him to live to tell this unforgettable story.

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In the article, “Shattered Lives” by Kristin Lewis, Dania faces many challenges. One challenge that she faced was that she was part of a war and had to leave all of the things she loved behind. On page 6 the author states “They faced a devastating choice: Stay and risk death, or leave everything behind…” Another piece of text evidence is “ In september, their choice became clear. They fled.”

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666 Words | 3 Pages

In the biography, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, the protagonist, Louie Zamperini was exposed to a horrifying experience of being in a Japanese POW camp. A POW camp is a containment area meant to hold enemy combatants in time of war. These camps were all run differently, but in the prisoners in Japanese camps were badly mistreated. Louie was in multiple POW camps during the war after his crash in the pacific. The first camp was located on a native island called Kwajalein.

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On page 159, Louie makes his first wish to God which stated, “If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him.” From this instance,

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“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man 's soul in his body long past the point when the body should have surrendered it” (Hillenbrand 189). In the novel Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis “Louie” Zamperini goes through several life-threatening experiences. After being a troublemaker as a child, and an Olympic athlete, Louie straps up his boots and becomes a bombardier for the Army Air Corps. After a traumatizing crash and a forty-six day survival at sea, Louie is taken captive by Japanese officials.

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709 Words | 3 Pages

Louie Zamperini has a lot to his name. A 4:08.3 mile, 56-second final lap in the 5000m, spoke with Hitler himself, these are achievements common people can’t come close to accomplishing. Louie was uncommon. In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie shows his resourcefulness as well as his determination to make his way through the roughest time of his life. When they caught the first fish and they had food first time in a week, “Louie had demonstrated that if they were persistent and resourceful, they could catch food, and he and Phil felt inspired.”

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755 Words | 4 Pages

“His bed was a straw mat with three paper sheets. The window had no glass, the walls were particleboard, the ceiling made of tar paper. With winter approaching Louie would be living in a building that was barely a windbreak”(Pg.147). They were lucky if they had one meal a day to scrape off the floors covered in roaches, dirt and absolute filth. Throughout all of the insanity there was one Guard who had a moral mindset, his name was Kawamura.

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The three-time United States Track and Field Olympic champion, Gail Devers once said, “Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can’t stay down. We can’t allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn’t think we could be that strong.” In the non-fiction book Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, protagonist Louis Zamperini demonstrates his everlasting perseverance through his everyday actions. Like Devers believed, the resilient Zamperini refused to be defeated or demoralized and did everything in his power to keep his feet on the ground and his chin up.

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In war, there is a winning side and a losing side, but both suffer casualties. Afflictions are not always dealt in death and physical pain, but also emotional damage. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes war’s capabilities to change people. When Mary Anne, a sweet, innocent, all-American girl, arrives in Vietnam to be with her soldier boyfriend, change is inevitable, and she will eventually lose her naiveté. O’Brien utilizes personification, jarring imagery, hyperbole, and pathos to convey that war shatters all innocence, no matter how hard one may try to avoid the change.

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Louie Zamperini went through more pain and suffering than most people will ever endure in their entire life. In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini was an Olympic runner. He was drafted during World War II . During the war, his plane crashed in the middle of the ocean and he was stranded with little resources to survive. This book follows his incredible story battling starvation and abuse in Prisoner of War camps (POW).

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1691 Words | 7 Pages

Morgan Cook Unbroken Book Review 1/16/18 Mrs. Campbell Honors Literature PD 1 “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand was published in 2010. From the first chapter i was hooked. Hillenbrand’s imagery and style caught my eye and pulled me into Louie’s story with no hesitation. I absolutely loved Hillenbrand’s structure in this book and it was much better than others i have read.

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Growth in God Through Grief In between the pages of this sacred journal of C.S. Lewis’, he dives into the depths of losing the one he was closest to, his wife. This journal is doubtlessly his most vulnerable book, because it is his direct life experience, and he does not hold back. C.S. Lewis slowly works through his pain and describes his experiences going through the process of grief. He is a man of faith and writes a fair amount about God in this book, but it is not all hopeful.

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819 Words | 4 Pages

Overcoming Dehumanization “Louie watched the sky and hoped the Americans would come before the Bird killed him” (181). This is one of the many examples of how the way POWs were treated in these camps influenced many lives negatively. Like many other Prisoners of War, Louie Zamperini survived several difficult conditions. He had to resist several attempts of dehumanization. In Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses both internal and external conflict to show that war has profound and varied effects on individuals.

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727 Words | 3 Pages

Louies family was thrilled to see him. To Louies family it seemed as if he carried very little emotion from being in the prison camps. Hillenbrand wrote, “They spoke easily, as they always had. No one asked about prison camp. Louie volunteered a little about it, and to everyone’s relief, it seemed to carry little emotion for him”(342).

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799 Words | 4 Pages

Louie had brought out this theme in the camps many times. He had stayed strong against the Bird, who would stop at nothing to destroy his dignity. Once, the Bird had given Louie and some others the job of cleaning the benjo, or bathroom. The Bird thought they were going to hate it, but, “To deprive him of the pleasure of seeing them miserable, they made a point of being jolly” (179). If Louie would have shown he was despondent, the Bird would possess all the power.

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