The Inclusion of Unbroken in the DCHS Curriculum Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, tells the story of a war hero named Louie Zamperini. Louie is challenged with pure evil and the trauma of the gruesome prisoner-of-war camps of WWII. Laura writes this book about the setting of WWII. In this time many soldiers of the war were taken into prisoner-of-war camps where soldiers experienced unbearable treatment. Louie Zamperini is among the soldiers who became prisoners of war. He goes through harsh treatment that no normal human being would be able to survive. After Louie’s war life, he comes home to a long road of mental problems with post-war trauma. Louie is overcome with an abundance of emotions throughout the war. Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken …show more content…
Towards the end of the book, Louie builds an alcohol addiction to cope with his PTSD. Laura describes that his addiction had gotten so bad that “reaching for his flask became as easy as slapping a swatter on a fly” (Hillenbrand 347). Laura uses this simile to describe the way soldiers dealt with trauma and how easily the soldiers could fall into addiction. Towards the beginning of the book, Louie is assigned to a B-24 plane. Everyone in the force gave the B-24 the name of “Flying Coffin” (Hillenbrand 64). The B-24 was known as the most untrustworthy plane for having a bad record of malfunctions throughout the plane. The soldiers used this metaphor to describe their plane as most likely being the cause of their deaths. Laura includes this metaphor to show how the soldiers had their morale diminished when they were assigned a B-24. The soldiers had no trust in the plane being able to bring them back home, let alone make it through their mission. Laura Hillenbrand also uses symbolism to outline different characters in the book. Watanabe is given the name “The Bird” (Hillenbrand 386) by the soldiers so that they can call him a name without negative connotation. The soldiers feared that if they gave him a bad name, then Watanabe would