Theme Of Unbroken Essay

Unbroken: The Story of Never Giving Up In I Am Number Four, Pittacus Lore states, “Don’t give up hope just yet. It’s the last thing to go. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope” (Lore 124). In the book, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, the main character, Louis (Louie) Zamperini goes through various soul breaking trials. Even through all the pain and agony, Louis is tenacious and never surrenders. The theme of Unbroken is to never give up because Louis wouldn’t have made it through trying to go to the Berlin Olympics, being stranded on a raft in the Pacific Ocean, and imprisoned at POW camps in Japan. One example of never giving up in Unbroken is when Louis is competing to be in the Berlin Olympics. During the 5,000m qualifier:

Louie sped up to go around him, but Casey sped up also, carrying Louis most of the way towards the grandstand.

The Daisy Mae was near the survivors on the raft when “Louie reloaded and fired again. The plane turned sharply right. Louie fired two more flares, past the tail . . . The flares spent themselves, and Daisy Mae flew on” (Hillenbrand 140). This shows that because Louis had hope that he was going to be rescued, he kept trying to catch the plane’s attention. Louis kept firing, even when he missed. In Unbroken, Hillenbrand states, “Now as he [Louis] was cast into extremity, despair and death became the focus of his defiance. The same attributes that made him the boy terror of Torrance were keeping him alive in the greatest struggle of his life. Though all men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fate” (Hillenbrand 155). Louis used his hope to recreate his emotional and physical being while marooned on a raft. This way he always chose life. Louis’s past helped him