Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand is written about the perspective of a young Olympic runner named Louis Zamperini. He is from Torrance, California. Life for him was normal until the he was called into service for his country. It was then when one of his most unforgettable experiences developed. Louis who is not a lone survivor shared his horrendous experiences with Russell Phillips. Together they went through the hardship of surviving not only through a plane crash but also a POW camp. The plane crash leaves him and two other crew members, one of which being Philips, stranded in the pacific on a raft for 40 days with little provisions which could barely last them the night. With occasional rainwater and fish they were able to survive long enough to be found by a Japanese plane. By that time it was too late to save the unknown crew member. Now just only Philips and Zamperini are left both being treated at a Japanese hospital where they will be restored to full health to just be stored into a prisoner of war camp. “…Clubbing him, jamming pen knives under his fingernails, tearing his fingernails off, and applying the water cure…”(Hillenbrand 201). Zamperini was stuck being tortured almost every day until the second nuke dropped on Nagasaki. Both adversities making a tremendous impact on their lives yet they still found a way to cope with it. The author shows great craftsmanship skills through the three major claims of dignity, resilience, and redemption. Laura Hillenbrand demonstrates dignity is just as important as anything else needed to live. “Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past th... ... middle of paper ... ...a Applewhite. When Zamperini met Cynthia she changed him and led him to forgetting some of the past. “He was a body on a raft, dying of thirst. He felt words whisper from his swollen lips. It was a promise thrown at heaven, a promise he had not kept, a promise he allowed himself to forget until just this instant: If you will save me, I will serve you forever” (375). This quote exemplified how he had not fulfilled what he had promised for God and how by having something to believe in made him move on from his past leaving him with no more dreams about Bird or any other part of the camp. I learned to always keep your honor, never give up, and fight to survive! This book entertained me but I’m not really into the biography style that it was written in. I would recommend the book. The storyline was very interesting just wasn’t the style that I was looking for in a book.
Louie Zamperini was a crewman of a B-24 Liberator, he was a bombardier until his bomber went down into the ocean. As a bombardier on a B-24, his mission was to drop bombs onto enemy positions to destroy important caches, such as Fuel, Ammunition etc. After the B-24 went down into the ocean, Louie, Phil and Mac were stranded in the ocean, with no food or water, determined to live they held on. When Phil and Louie were captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy, they were taken to Kwajalein. Louie and Phil was then transferred to Ofuna, and lastly, Omori, where he was beaten by the Bird. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses the life experiences of Louie Zamperini to show the traits of Determined and Courageous.
War. Author Michael Shaara does an excellent job of showing the bravery and valor of
Louie Zamperini survived almost two months at sea facing starvation, extreme thirst, and shark attacks. During WWII, Louie was captured and taken to many Japanese prison camps where he was drained emotionally and physically. Though his conditions were obviously not ideal, Louie kept up his lively personality and found ways to take care of himself to survive. In the novel Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses both internal and external conflict to show the theme people can stand up against enemies even when the odds seemed stacked up against them.
So if we want joy, love, and empathy in our lives, we need to let vulnerability into our hearts.... ... middle of paper ... ... But instead of reacting negatively, I was pleased to see that Anabella and Francisco and Santos – and all my other students – understood. They saw that I was trying my best, and that for any positive change to occur, we, all, had to put ourselves at risk in the arena.
The demand to survive in an extreme environment encourages certain individuals to proceed to live their life despite the hardships they may face. In the novels, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the individuals must discover what it takes to obtain the will to survive in these extreme environments they are presented with. Thus, resulting in comparisons between their mental states (internal challenges), and contrasts between their physical states (external challenges) by Louie Zamperini and Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi).
From start to finish, the novel emphasizes the importance of will power and determination. Will is unbreakable; you can put humans through hell and take everything from them, but as long as they make the consistent choice to remain determined and driven, the will power they possess will remain. Unbroken teaches readers that nothing is impossible. Far too often do we make such miniscule problems in life seem unbearable; however, Unbroken allows us to answer the constant question of “compared to what?” In times where Louis is forced to do things like “crawl through the filth of a pig 's sty… to save himself from starving to death” (Hillenbrand 128), one often wonders how selfish and ungrateful we truly are. Surely we can wait a few more hours before eating our next meal. The daily trials we encounter are nothing compared to the daily torture Louis endured, and his story seemingly puts our lives back into perspective. Unbroken is a remarkably powerful book because it opens up the eyes of readers and allows them to take away messages that seemed so obvious before. From a very early age we are taught to never give up and to keep your hope alive; however, we never truly understand what that means. The story of Louis Zamperini allows readers to reflect on the situations in life they deem “unbearable” and “impossible,” only to come to realize how shameful it is to complain
I would definitely recommend this book for a friend to read! I really liked this books cause it has lots of action in it and when there isn’t any action happening, it’s just building up to some more action. I also liked this book because you really get to know the characters and everything is very detailed, especially the war scenes. The most important reason I like this book has to be because of all the action.
Read it as a memoir with great insight and a damn good owners manual on how to get along in this world, and I can guarantee you won't be let down; in fact, you will probably be quite impressed. But if what you're looking for is a book that needs to live up to the standards of a great piece of literature, you're looking in the wrong place.
The Beacon | Respecting Human Dignity, Improving Lives. The Beacon | Respecting Human Dignity, Improving Lives. Retrieved January 27, 2014, from http://www.chomhouston.org.
Unbroken is a book that has touched everyone that's read it in someway, Louie's can do attitude will leave us inspired to do more with our lives by the end of the book. Laura Hillenbrand tells us the life of tenacious Louie Zamperini, who went from an olympian to a living corpse to a man of God. Louie Zamperini was a troubled child who seemed to going on the wrong path, but once he started running he learned that he couldn't keep doing the things he used to do. Louie makes it to the olympics and comes in eighth. He is then drafted into the military where he becomes a bombarder. His plane crashed in the ocean where he was stuck at sea for 47 days. The Japanese captured him at sea and took him to a prisoner of war camp, he was torchered for two years till he was rescued. Even after he was rescued he was still not the same because of he had
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
During WWII, both Japanese American internees and American POWs in Japan were made invisible by being isolated and dehumanized, even through all of this both internees and POWs did not give up and resisted against their captors. In the novel, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie Zamperini is in the U.S air force during WWII. He and his crew crash leaving Louie and another man drifting in the pacific until they are eventually found by the Japanese and are put into camps. While in the camps Louie has his dignity taken away from them, but resist giving in to the camp leader. In The life of Miné Okubo, Miné Okubo is a Japanese-American artist who is forced to enter a camp because of her Japanese ancestry. While being in the internment camps Miné
Overall, this was a great book because I finished it in two days. It was filled with suspense, action, valuable themes, and it made me feel a wide variety of emotions. The book explored the value of family, the corruption of government, and the fundamental question of “Should one follow the order if it’s immoral to one?”
Our current society is not capable of turning into one similar to Gilead. Gilead is an unstable time period, for what was known to be the United States of America. There are several reasons why our society today cannot be one like Gilead. The people of Gilead do many acts that violate the Bill of Rights, which our society respects highly. The United States Constitution is also violated in the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Some may consider this book biased, but I consider this book to be a true, well written story of a woman who struggled and who never gave up. A story that actually used her diary entry that was implemented into the chapters. The author gave the reader the opportunity to see how hard her life was and how she withstood all that came at her, in a way that makes this book an inspiration not only for women but rather for all of us.