Survival In Unbroken

Survival at the Finest

I enjoyed reading Unbroken which is a book that showed the struggles of a grueling air warfare between United States and Japan. Throughout the book, Laura Hillenbrand, author of Unbroken gripped the reader’s attention through the details of gut-wrenching conflicts. By showing the art of survival through the character, Louis Zamperini, Hillenbrand demonstrates the theme of resilience through persistency, intelligent choice making, and willingness to live.

A huge part of the story showed how a person could overcome all the odds to become successful is feats such as sports and other activities. Most sports champions show great endurance to win many competitions. Similarly, Hillenbrand indicated that Louis, a competitive runner, trained until “he (had) rubbed the skin right off one of his toes, (leaving) his sock bloody” (Hillenbrand 23). As a result of all the hard work, Louis overcome struggles such as a bleeding shin, broken ribs, and a damaged toe to set time records for many races. In my experiences, I see many people take sports and other extra-curricular activities as a burden without embracing the challenges. In contrast, Louis illustrates the rare athlete and human being who seeks solutions to

pass through opposing factors from his love of the activity. At the end, the person who never gives up until his or her last breathe reaches greater heights than others.
By making a slight tweak to a dangerous situation, a person could avoid major catastrophes.

Specifically, Hillenbrand exposes some clutch decisions made by Louis during the plane ride at the war of Nauru. As the Zeros shot down the breaks of the airplane, Louis strapped himself and the injured crewmen with a parachute cord to reduce the impacts of the harsh landing. That event sent a message to me that some actions made at key moments could save the person and the people around him or her. Furthermore, Hillenbrand conveys to the readers that even an average human being could make a drastic change to disastrous events. Consequently, the willingness to make a gusty choice exposes the person’s toughness and desire to survive through any

moments.
As a human being, we have the ability to survive brutal conditions due to our sheer willingness to stay alive. For this reason, we have become the superior species to other animals. Likewise, Louis and Phil displayed superhuman efforts to live in a raft by eating raw fish and birds, drinking rain water, fighting off sharks, and avoiding Japanese bullets. It also jumped out to me that Louis lost nearly half his body weight and still lived. By showing great desire to live, Louis exemplifies how a person could survive with almost no resources and rough conflicts. It also jumped out to me that Louis lost half his body weight and still lived. A man could be in any tricky situation and seemingly near death, but he or she will always find a way to remain alive.
In many different forms of tough acts, Hillenbrand impacted the reader’s point of view of what true resilience means. As a reader, I learned that not giving up could help me to achieve greatness as it did to Louis Zamperini. With resilience, a person could overcome any immortal tasks and fulfil his or her destiny.