Unbroken is a biography by Laura Hillenbrand about the life of Louis Zamperini. The story begins with Louis’ early life, growing up in Torrance, California. In high school, Louie began running for his high school track team, and broke the high school national record for the one-mile run. He competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and was drafted into the Army Air Corps in WWII. On a mission, his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and two others survived with him. One died, but him and his friend Phil survived on a raft for 47 days. They were captured by the Japanese, and Unbroken portrays the atrocities that Louie and other POWS faced in Japanese POW camps. Unbroken makes history come alive because Laura Hillenbrand wrote it based on primary …show more content…
For example, the Bird tortures the POWs by forcing them to do extreme amounts of labor along with basically starving them. The Bird targets Louie because he is a famous American, having been an Olympic athlete. The Bird hunts down Louie and constantly beats, kicks, and punches him, acts that went against the Geneva Convention, which dictated how POWs were supposed to be treated. The Bird haunts Louie’s dreams, during the war, and even after the war, until he is pronounced dead in the late 20th century. The Bird committed unthinkable acts against the POWs being held in Japan, and is very deserving of his title of “villain” in Unbroken. The greatest conflict in Unbroken is undoubtedly between the Bird and Louie. To give a background on the Bird, he was considered “Absolutely the most sadistic man I have ever met,” (237) according to POW Jack Brady. The Bird broke the men’s spirits, destroying the POW’s pictures of their families, showing them letters from their families and then destroying them in front of the POWs. Louie was “hunted down” by the Bird, and he faced constant beatings. As a result, Louie had so much hatred that he wanted to kill the Bird, and even dreamed of strangling