...Unbroken The book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is about the remarkable life story of Louis Silvie Zamperini. Louie must face many difficult challenges in his life that will test his physiological and physical self. These challenges will define who he is and show the excellent virtues that he has. Most of all it will show the magnificent strength Louie has to overcome the most impossible challenges given to him. The book the Odyssey is very similar to Unbroken in a lot of ways. Both the main characters must face extremely difficult challenges in order to survive, but they will still have to live with the most treacherous memories. Louie’s experiences are in many ways similar to that of Odysseus’s. For example: Louie is a great war hero and soon finds himself lost and in extreme danger just like Odysseus. Louie then feels responsible for his surviving men and must guide them to safety just like Odysseus when he was in charge of his crew. Odysseus was stranded at sea for a long time just like Louie when he was on his raft. Louie also came very close to being rescued just like Odysseus when he saw his home island but was never able to reach it. Odysseus was kept prisoner on an island for a long time like Louie was at a POW camp but Odysseus did not get beaten or starved while he was prisoner. Louie used his great intelligence and cleverness to outsmart guards like Odysseus when he outsmarted the Cyclopes. Both men lost their fellow crewmen and had to fend for themselves and...
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...Louie Zamperini was a hero, he was also many other things, but most of all he was unbreakable. He remains unbroken throughout his entire life from his younger years in life to growing old. As a child he would rebel, get in trouble, and do it all over again. As for running he always pushed harder, fought through the pain, broke record after record, and all while focusing on a better him. In the war he never gave up, and always had a positive attitude with himself and his co pilots. On the raft he showed he, himself could survive as well as making it so his friends could make it out alive with him. When he was a prisoner he was the strongest of all. He didn’t let anyone get to him, and if they did it was only for a second. He pushed through the toughest of challenges, and continued to help not only himself survive, but also his fellow pow’s. In his old age he fought an ongoing battle against his...
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...In Unbroken, Louis Zamperini (Louie), faced inconceivable odds when facing all the trials and tribulation in his long life. When Louie and two of his crewmates from the Green Hornet survive crashing into the Pacific Ocean, they are left with no choice other than to use two emergency rafts and float in the vast ocean. While on the raft they catch seabirds and attempt to eat them, or use them as bait. They limit the amount of water they have, and would occasionally go days without it, praying for rainfall. Two of the men (Louie included), survived forty-seven days aboard the raft. The third crew member (Mac), tragically passed away, most likely from dehydration and starvation. Louie survived the plane crash, the forty-seven days adrift on the raft, and his capture by the Japanese due to his strong and determined characteristics and attributes from his childhood....
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...Unbroken is a real-life, modern day, epic. This story was something that came straight out of a myth, but the truth in it holds to be accurate. This man was the epitome of American ideals, and he went into a war with nothing but a truly iron will. This was the deciding factor in his survival, not his shape physically, but his mind. Admittedly his running was what hardened his will to continue even when every fiber of his body demanded respite. This training was what enabled his mind to handle the sort of stresses put onto him through WWII. Louie Zamperini’s early life was chaotic, but it focused as he got older into a truly beautiful ability as a runner. He started out with a natural ability to run, and his rebelliousness was actually a strength of mind that wouldn’t allow him to bend to others will. This strength also helped him rebel from his own impulses to stop running. The people that are born with a “troubled” character, one that doesn’t easily fit into society and superiors is something that isn’t often seen as a benefit. In Unbroken it is shown in a different light, one that gives an idea of the iron will of rebellious people. As Louie starts his life he rubs everyone the wrong way because he refuses to give, whether it is the right choice or the wrong one it is his choice to make, and he takes control of his own path in a way that often gets trampled in today’s society. As this book progressed I got to know Louie, and couldn’t help but resonate with...
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...A Life Saved by Rebellion, Dignity and Faith. Survival, Resilience and Redemption; these are three themes Laura Hillenbrand defines as major themes in her book Unbroken. While I agree with Hillenbrand that these are very strong themes I feel that rebellion, dignity and faith are far entirely better fitting. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a non-fiction tale of Louis Zamperini, a man who began life as a rambunctious child and teenager and grew to face great odds during World War II, yet came out alive and with a new outlook on life. Hillenbrand unravels Louie’s life as she illustrates his journey following his World War II bomber crashing into the ocean on a routine flight, and the rescue of his deathly frail body 47 days later is better referred to as his capture. He was now at the hands of enemy Japanese soldiers, and would face years of agonizing mental and physical torture in their imprisonment camps. Suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following his return home, as many World War II soldiers did, Louie sunk to very low place in life. In that time he realizes these themes in himself and finally finds his peace. As a first generation American who was born in New York and raised in California, Louis Zamperini’s acts of rebellion were not only out of desperate desire for attention but for sustaining the lives of his family and himself. Louie’s family struggled with money as he was growing up, so he had taken it upon...
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...In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, an Olympic runner, Louie Zamperini is sent to fight in war. His plane crashed, leaving him stranded. He soon finds himself in a Prisoner of War camp, where he is starved, enslaved, and beaten. In the short story Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan, an Indian 13-year-old girl, Koly has to marry. After marrying, she discovered that her husband is seriously ill and used her dowry, a large sum of goods and cash that goes towards the groom in an Indian marriage, in an attempt to treat his condition. Shortly after he passes, she has to stay with her new family that leaves her hungry,...
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...Unbroken has literary merit in its examination of a remarkably tough and resilient man, which will ensure it will "stand the test of time" outweighing any negative effects of the perceived racial discrimination. Unbroken can stand the test of time because of the human nature and resilience in Louis to which anyone can relate. In unbroken Louis demonstrates key characteristics that made him a spectacular individual; characteristics that are relatable and thus can stand the test of time. The characteristics are as follows endurance, fearlessness, and...
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...that once he had got involved in war, the plane he was in, would crash with only 3 people surviving including himself. Louie and the two men that had also survived try to find ways of staying alive, using the objects that they only had in the raft. Once one of their partners passed away right in front of them, they soon got captured by the Japanese and were very mistreated. After Louie had stopped stealing, his brother Pete had encouraged him into running. He then started practicing and ran everywhere. Soon enough, he had won about every meet he had, even beating the high schoolers. With everything coming so fast, Louie then realized he was at the Olympics. In the novel, Unbroken Lauren Hillenbrand uses Louie’s life experiences to show his two most important...
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...strategies they’re hiding, and chess can be played to settle issues, some involving trade or land as they try to mislead the other side. Then when their queen’s down, it’s over. In Hillenbrand’s award winning book Unbroken, Louie Zamperini was a famous American olympian, who had been beaten and enslaved into strenuous labor during WWII. As a child he was unruly and anarchistic. Louie’s main enemy was none other than Mutsuhiro Watanabe, nicknamed “The Bird,” the sadistic guard who would beat Louie and the other POWs daily, stripping their...
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...houses. In fact, this experience was the perfect chance to open her eyes up for global charity. She said later, “My eyes started to open.”(Park) After she paid attention to the humanitarian activity, she started to become the Goodwill Ambassador for UN Refugee Agency, and she progressed various charities, volunteer activity and support activity for refugees. For instance, while she was traveling more than 20 countries, she met and helped so many homeless refugees whose their homes were taken by the conflict, natural disaster, or war in the refugee camps. Even though some countries she had been were war zones that could be possible to threaten her life, she didn’t care about whether the area was a war zone, or not. She just concentrated on how to help those poor refugees, and voluntarily was involved in refugee camps (Kelley). Besides, Jolie’s donation is also worthy of note for her humanitarian relief. In 2005, In NEWSWEEK, she donated enough funds to establish The National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children (Kelley). According to the INDEPENDENT news, she and her husband, Brad Pitt contributed 4.9 million dollars for charity in 2009 (Showbiz). Not only donation part and volunteer work, but also her political participation for promoting humanitarian work is also a good example to show the reason why she deserves to receive a tribute. According to the Times, Jolie claimed for legislation to support refugees who were suffering under the troubled regions around the world while...
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...was a troubled child, when he was a track star, was stranded in the vast ocean, to when he was in the dreadful prison camps, Louie had been challenged with enduring solitude and loneliness. This somewhat helped in a positive and negative way. It helped him by being familiar with this feeling, unlike Mac and Phil on the raft. It impacted Louie positively by making him result in clarifying of himself, his values, and his philosophy. The protagonist suffers not only with loneliness, but through separation from his family, torture by a Japanese prison guard known as "the Bird," and drifting in the Pacific for forty seven days. Surprisingly he continues to become stronger and becomes unbreakable. Louie, a strong hero in Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, discovers in the state of loneliness, holding onto one’s faith, relationship with loved ones, and friends can make a difference between life and death. Louie looks towards God for...
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...He conducted an experiment or a test. Among the birds that ended in arid environments, the ones, with beaks better suited for eating cactus got more food. As a result, they were in better condition to mate or reproduce. Similarly, those with beaks shapes that were better suited to getting nectar from flowers or eating hard seeds in other environments were at an advantage there. Koza ensured, “In a very real sense, nature selected the best adapted varieties to survive and to reproduce. This process has come to be known as natural selection.” Darwin thought that the variation already existed and that nature just selected for the most suitable beak shape and against less useful ones. “He soon described this process as ‘survival of the fittest’” (page 423). Obviously, Darwin’s theory on natural selection is based on how well animals survived in certain regions and how they adapted to the...
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...Unbroken Imagine being in a Japanese prison camp, getting tortured every day, suffering from malnourishment, and being forced into slavery. Well, this was the daily struggle for Louie Zamperini. Louie, once an Olympic runner, drafted into the military to fight World War II, gets into a terrible plane crash. Leaving him stranded for 46 days before being found by Japanese troops. He then goes from camp to camp, being tormented daily for over 2 years. After the war, he struggles to find meaning and peace in life. Throughout this adventure, he must search for truth about his survival, love from himself and others, and his identity that has been lost in the crash. Louie is searching for the truth of his survival after the crash. When Louie was on...
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...American writer and poet Erica Jong once wrote, “Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.” In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Louie lived by these words, when L. Zamperini shows his skill in the sport of track, with blood, sweat, and tears along his journey to compete in the Olympics. Following, Louie honed his skills in the Air force during WWII, to help him survive the “punishment” (P.O.W.) camp, Ofuna. Hillenbrand described Louie as a skilled delinquent at the beginning of the book, often stealing and participating in pranks. In high school, however, Pete introduced Louie to running; and Louie showed tremendous amounts of skill and athleticism, taking to the sport extremely...
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...Resilience The stories of ex-former prisoners of war inhumane experiences they faced during their captures are unimaginable. Prisoners of war, from all nations, were subject to daily beatings, slow starvation, dehydration, murder, forced labor, isolation and even medical experimentation. The ones who did survive were returned to their homes; only these veterans were left with a lifelong scar. The devastating effects of POW’s affects family, work, social and all other aspects of their lives. One illustration is of a Holocaust survivor who spoke about the bitterness that remains in himself about Nazi’s treated him and other POW’s, “If you could lick my heart, it would poison you” (Thomas). To some, crimes like the Holocaust may seem unforgivable, from a religious aspect, it is a Christian obligation. But many could argue that one cannot commit such cruelty and evil and simply be forgiven, so crimes like the holocaust may seem unforgiveable but it is evident by many researchers and scholars that in fact they have found that forgiveness plays a crucial role in the ex- Prisoners of war emotional healing to be able to lead a resilient life after such traumatic events. Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always remain a part of your life. But forgiving allows you to help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Understanding that everyone may or may not deserve forgiveness no matter...
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