Analysis Of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken

Humans can be pushed far past their limits before they have realized they’ve had enough. Very few people in this world can pick themselves back up when being pushed into the dirt by their very worst enemies. Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken represents this very idea. Louie Zamperini’s life was almost perfect until he was sent into a war zone. He experienced being tormented and physically abused every day as a POW without being able to fight back. The abuse taught him to “rise”, as stated in Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”. Angelou wrote about the struggles of being belittled by others. “Still I Rise” and Unbroken are both similar because they both exemplify having the ability to face your enemies and leaving your anger in the past. The suffering that Louie was put through in the book was almost unimaginable. He knew that despite all of the agony, there was a life waiting for him back home. Louie took the abuse from The Bird day by day. He wouldn’t allow The Bird to receive the satisfaction he usually gets after beating a POW. During one of Louie’s daily beatings, The Bird urged him not to look

Liberated at last, Louie waved his final goodbye to the place that caused him excruciating, devastating, and horrifying pain. He “raised his arm and waved the war behind” (Hillenbrand 318). After all of the time Louie had spent at the POW camp, he was able to live to see the day he would go back to his old life. Similarly in “Still I Rise”, Angelou was “leaving behind nights of terror and fear” (Angelou 35). She was overcoming her past and moving toward the future. Along with leaving behind all of their fear, both Louie and Angelou were able to look forward to their lives in front of them. Louie was still so young when he finally left the POW camp, and he still had his whole life to live. All of those nights he spent starving or shivering were worth it, because he was finally