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Book Report On Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

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Recommended: An essay on bravery

People live through positive and negative events. Many people have struggles throughout their lives that make life feel impossible with the amount of abuse that is placed on them. Louie is stranded at sea and his situation does not get much better when he is taken by the Japanese. Being beaten by the Bird on nearly a daily basis while stuck as a POW in Japan eventually takes a toll on Louie. Although the war is over after nearly two years as a POW, his problems do not get much better. PTSD and being an alcoholic follows him around and constantly haunts him. In the novel, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, it shows a true story of a soldier’s life of positives and negatives while being stranded out at sea, being a prisoner of war, and having post …show more content…

While stranded out at sea, Louie became more mentally stronger. Louie endured dangerous weather, being attacked by sharks, getting shot at by a Japanese bomber, surviving from the bare minimum supplies, and watching his only little bit of hope fly away. In the middle of chapter 17, Louie and his fellow crewman, Phil, finally spot land, until a Japanese ship spots them drifting towards the island. They are taken in as POWs, prisoners of war. POW is a term used for a person that has been captured and imprisoned by the enemy in war. With Louie being stranded at sea for as long as he was, this helped him be prepared for being taken in as a POW and being beaten. An example of Louie’s mental toughness showing is, “The beam tipped. The guard jabbed Louie with his gun, and Louie straightened up. Less and less blood was reaching his head, and he began to feel confused, his thoughts gauzy, the camp swimming around him. He felt his consciousness slipping, his mind losing adhesion, until all he knew was a single thought: He cannot break me. Across the compound, the bird stopped laughing”(302). Louie knew that if he dropped the six foot wooden beam, he would view himself as a failure, and the Bird would beat him. Louie wanted to prove his defiance to the Bird, and his mental toughness is what is keeping him

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Louie says, “He cannot break me” (Hillenbrand 113). By saying this Louie resisted the attempts of the Bird trying to make him feel invisible. Even thought Louie was already resisting the Bird, Louie and the other POWs resisted even more, “...They threw dirt in gas tanks” (Hillenbrand 179) Louie and the other POWs did this because they were being treated like slaves in the coal mine. Although not as harsh as what the POWs went through, the POWs threw dirt into the gas tank so that the Japanese could learn not to mess with the POWs because they will fight back.

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He decided to visit his captors for closure rather than revenge. “Louie had been told that all of the men who had tormented him had been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned here in Sugamo. He could speak about and think of his captors, even the Bird, without bitterness, but a question tapped at the back of his mind. If he should ever see them again, would the peace that he had found prove resilient?” (Hillenbrand 385).

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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

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The book unbroken is about a man named louie zamperini. It talks about the horrors he faced during and after the war such as ptsd, torture, starvation and meny more. In this essay i will talk about the 3 most important traits that led to him forgive his former captors. As well as the one who tortured him the most during his time being a POW and and in his nightmares. The 3 most important traits that led him to forgive them were bravery, determination, and his motivation.

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Shortly after being captured, Zamperini is taken to a POW camp where he is abused physically and mentally. Throughout the novel the readers learn that the hardships of war effect Louie, causing the loss of his dignity. After Louie was captured by the Japanese, he was taken to a POW camp ,Ofuna, they began to deprive Louie of human essentials such as food and water. To make matters worse, they started to conduct experiments on him and his comrade Phil, “The doctor pushed more solution into his vein, and the spinning worsened.

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As time passed, one of the men passed away and was thrown overboard. After forty-seven days of suffering, Louie along with his raft mate, were captured by the Japanese. The two were sent to a Prisoner Of War camp. Louie says; “All I see, he thought, is a dead body breathing. Louie dissolved into hard, racking weeping.

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This letter shows that Louie is forgiving because he forgave Matsuhiro Watanabe, aka the bird, even though Louie thought of killing him. Cynthia took Louie to Graham who talked about god because Louie was in a bad state and started drinking heavily. When Louie got there, he remembered what he said to god. He said, “ … If you’ll save me, I’ll serve you forever. And then, standing under the tent on a clear night in Los Angeles, Louie felt rain falling on his face.

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His wife began going to Billy Graham’s services, and encouraged Louie to attend as well. After Louie decided to attend, he continued to talk with Billy Graham and accept that forgiveness would be the only way for him to escape the terror of The Bird. Finally, Louie was able to look beyond the torture he has endured, and learned to believe in his Christian faith and forgive The Bird.

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The fact that Louie is throwing himself into being the leader of the tough situation and using his mental skill to comprehend ideas which could lead to a different fate shows how skillful he really is. As can also be seen in the text: "He snatched the cord, reeled the raft to him, and climbed aboard. He rowed to Phil and Mac" (Hillenbrand 4, 5). This also shows how important skillfulness is due to the fact that Louie found his solution to a problem and put it in action. Luckily, it can be shown in his natural instinct to do this sort of idea-thinking process.

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The Bird forces him to clean up after a pig with his bare hands. Although pushed through this Louie was able to find small victories such as racing civilians which boosted his moral immensely. “He knew what would happen if he won, but the cheering and the accumulation of so many months of humiliation brought something in him to a hard point. He lengthened his stride, seized the lead, and crossed the finish line” (Hillenbrand 216). He was knocked out with a club after this, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of his win.

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Louie Zamperini and Commander John Fitzgerald show strength and resolution in the face of adversity. For example, when Louie’s plane crashed and the men were on the raft, Laura Hillenbrand wrote, “Louie was determined to keep himself and the others lucid”(114). During their journey on the rafts, Louie tried to keep Phil, Mac and himself hopeful in a seemingly hopeless situation. He tried to distract them from hunger and troubling thoughts by singing songs and talking about comforting memories of the past. Commander John Fitzgerald demonstrated his fortitude in Ofuna.

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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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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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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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After Louie’s plane crashed in the middle of the ocean, he and two other survivors had to overcome a series of conflicts before they could make it to safety. Throughout Laura Hillenbrand's book, "Unbroken", Louie’s most important characteristic of resilience that contributed to his survival was his awareness. With his awareness of his surroundings and situation, Louie was able to overcome the conflicts he faced such as shark attacks, dehydration, and starvation. One of the first obstacles that Louie and his friends face while they were stranded in the ocean, was the possibility of a shark attack.

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