Forgiveness In Louis Zamperini's 'Unbroken'

“The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total” (Zamperini as qtd. in Goodreads). A person's past does not define who they are in the present. A person can change and transform throughout their life. That person needs to be forgiven for their past mistakes and focus on becoming a better individual. Even though many people view Unbroken as a war story, the real focus is on the transformation of a man through forgiveness. In the beginning of Louis Zamperini’s life he was a very rebellious and ill-tempered child. He got into drugs, alcohol, and found himself in the midst of many fights. His family and friends never anticipated that young

A person like this is the Bird, The Bird was a leader of a prison of war camp who treated Louis as if he were not even human. Louis never did anything against the Bird but he still tried to break Louis down. The Bird acted as if Zamperini had done something absolutely and horrifyingly terrible. The first encounter Louis had with the Bird was at the first camp called Ofuna which was a military based camp. The Bird had put a target on Louis back because he recognized him as a famous olympic runner. He beat and made fun of Louis endlessly trying to get him to his breaking point. later, Louis is moved to a second camp called Omori where he thought that he has finally escaped the Bird’s cruelness, he was wrong. The Bird also moved to Omori so that he could stay with Zamperini. The situation here did not get better as Louis thought it would, the bird actually got meaner and things got harder (Bos). Now, this seems like one of those particular situations where it would be impossible to forgive. It would take a very special person to forgive someone that has done so many horrible things to a person like the Bird had done to Zamperini. Louis, against all odds and against all normality decides that the right thing for him to do would be for him to forgive the Bird. This decision to forgive him happens later in Louis life, but no one knows where he is so Louis would

You would think with everything that Zamperini went through he would be able to get through anything and everything, right? Wrong, even after the war he could not conquer his fight with alcohol or depression (Etheridge). Actually everything got worse for Louis after the war. He struggled with P.T.S.D. which made his depression even worse causing him to hurt many of his personal relationships. To help deal with his problems, depression, and other things in his life he would go out and drink, and drinking then became even more of an obsession and a problem in his life. Louis could not beat this fight, and people thought that he never would until one day his wife forced Louis to go and hear Billy Graham speak. Zamperini wanted none of it, the first time he went he stormed out thinking he would never return, but amazingly he went back one time and that transformed his life forever. Louis hears many verses quoted by Billy that show him of God’s forgiveness that He has for everyone. Hearing this, Zamperini remembers back to the day he promised he would devote his life to God, if God let him live. In that moment Louis decided to give his life to our Savior Jesus Christ. “I knew I was through getting drunk,” Zamperini said. “I knew I was through smoking, and I knew I’d forgiven all of my guards including The Bird. Never dawned on me again that I hated the guy” (Zamperini as qtd. in After