Former major league baseball player Tommy Lasorda once said, “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, Louie Zamperini demonstrates this quote with his determination to survive the challenges he faced before, during, and after the war. This determination helped Louie face and overcome the challenges presented to him during the war. As a child and runner, Louie showed his determination through his actions and words. Behaving like a delinquent and committing acts of thievery caused his town to consider Louie the “bad” kid. Although he often broke the law, Louie also helped out those in need by willingly giving them his stolen items them his stolen …show more content…
Thankfully, Louie’s determination to survive helped keep him and one of his crew members alive to see their family again. After capture, forced into working and starved nearly to death at camps they found themselves in an even more difficult situation. Triumphant in his efforts to survive, Louie withstood more than his physical and mental strength should have allowed. Like Rosa Parks, a determined Louie fought for what he believed, through the pain he kept a bar raised over his head when “The Bird” wanted to punish him: “Five more minutes passed, then ten. Louie’s arms began to waver and go numb. His body shook. The beam tipped. ...Louie had held the beam aloft for thirty-seven minutes “. (p302)Louie also showed this determination when he tried to keep his crew's mental state in check, he told them of his mother's food: “So began a thrice-daily ritual on the raft, with pumpkin pie and spaghetti being the favorite subjects. “(p153). Courage allowed him and his crew to survive longer; staying alive provided more challenges. Louie once hung the side of a raft, dodging bullets and kicking away sharks even when weak and starved. “As quickly as he could, Louie pulled himself along the cord until he reached the raft. He grabbed its wall and lifted himself clear of the shark “.(p162) This shows Louie, weak physically, was able to withstand what seemed almost …show more content…
He found it hard to talk about the war, but his spirit helped him post war to continue living his life without being consumed by his traumatic memories. After the rescue, Louie faced many struggles with his recurring nightmares about “The Bird” made sleep difficult. He went to bars and often became drunk, like many other past soldiers, in order to forget about the war and the horrors he had experienced: “...Hollaran was fortunate. Of the five survivors of his crew two drank themselves to death.”(p356) Later he used his determination to quit drinking and he found God after his new wife, Cynthia Applewhite, dragged him to a Billy Graham preaching. During the gathering he remembered something from the raft: “That day, he believed that what lay around them was the work of infinitely broad, benevolent hands, a gift of compassion.”(p381) For Louie, such an experience changed his life. He gave up drinking and reshaped his life and got back on track using his determination and
The Zamperini He survived 47 days of being stranded in the Pacific, no food, no water. Louie, a former italian olympian, was progressing to compete in the olympics in Japan. War interfered with the olympics and they got cancelled; Louie had to register for the military. Throughout his military experiences, he got in a plane crash, got stranded, then became a prisoner of war of Japan, and survived. From the book, Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand, the two words that define Louie the most are that he is determined and brave.
Many people have to go through difficult times, but many do not have to face what Louie Zamperini faced. Louie Zamperini was an Olympic athlete in WWII. While on a bombing run, he crashed in the Pacific Ocean and was stranded for 47 days at sea. He was captured, beaten, and torchered by the Japanese for two years. In Laura Hillenbrand’s book, Unbroken, Louie Zamperini showed rebelliousness and resistance while at the harsh POW camps, but uses these traits to survive the Japanese’s mind games and beatings.
Louie was able to survive in the raft because of his brother Pete, his Olympic experience and he was smart and papered, to a degree. Pete influenced his survival because before Louie joined the war Pete helped train him for the Olympics, when Pete pushed and encouraged him to never stop and to always keep his head up, which help Louie not give up on the raft and keep fighting for his life. The text states on pages 15, “from that day on Pete was all over Louie for him to train,” this proves that Pete pushed Louie, which thought Louie to never stop and to always keep going. The Olympic experience helped Louie survive because it thought him to take the pain and keep going. The text states on page 44, “…as he neared the final turn he saw a tiny
Laura Hillenbrand’s biography titled Unbroken recounts the life of Louie Zamperini and major events that occurred throughout it. Hillenbrand’s purpose was to emphasize the inspirational story of heroic Zamperini as he qualified and participated in the Olympics, as well as describe the endless struggle of pain in the plane crash and in the Japanese POW camps. She also portrays the importance of dignity and resilience and how without it, the chances of surviving the cruel events Louie experienced during World War II would have been minimal.
Louie then demonstrated great fortitude when he swam extremely fast to get the life rafts, and then paddled to Phil and Mac, plausibly saving their lives while recovering, himself, from nearly drowning. Louie then went on to face great physical and mental suffering when he survived 47 days at sea while enduring starvation, thirst, the blazing sun, sharks surrounding the rafts, and the constant mental game of staying sane while not knowing if he or his crewmates were going survive another day. To overcome these physical and mental challenges, Louie amazingly learned how to catch birds, that landed on his raft, then eating the bird and using its remains to catch fish Louie also created mechanism that could preserve rain water which produced some, but not nearly enough, food and water for himself, Phil, and Mac, and Louie. (quote)
Louie Zamperini was one of many soldiers who suffered through tremendous amounts of mistreatment and only scant amounts of food during his time as a POW to the Japanese: “ For these men, nothing was ever going to be the same,” (354). Returning home, these terrible memories of his imprisonment stuck with him; provoking him to make decisions that would only cause harm to himself.: “‘It was like he got hit real hard and he was trying to shake it off,’” (346). Meeting someone who distracted him from his pain, he became infatuated with the woman, asking her hand in marriage after only two weeks of knowing one another. Nightmares of the Bird’s constant beatings lead Zamperini to drinking, the only thing that drove his mind completely from the painful
Louie Zamperini is a very inspiring character. From a troublemaker thief to a record breaker to a hero he turned himself around. It’s not about the mistakes you make in life its what you do about them and that was the biggest takeaway from this book.
As indicated by Laura Hillenbrand in Unbroken, ¨A month earlier, twenty-six-year-old Zamperini had been one of the greatest runners in the world, expected by many to be the first to break the four-minute mile, one of the most celebrated barriers in sport. Now his Olympian’s body had wasted to less than one hundred pounds and his famous legs could no longer lift him. Almost everyone outside of his family had given him up for dead¨ Louis’s life had gone to pieces all in two or three months. He was tormented, stranded, and broken. He was broken until he was saved and it make him come to a realization of his life. No individual ought to be abandoned or regarded as the way he seemed to
War offers many lessons on how to overcome adversity and one can learn valuable lessons from people like soldiers and especially prisoners of war. As a boy, Louie was a troublemaker destined to become a criminal, as he did many horrible acts when he was younger. At age fifteen, he turned his life around and began running; setting world records no one else could in the Olympics. When WWII broke out, he joined the Armed forces and everything went down from there and he was held captive. In Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie made himself resist invisibility by being courageous and resourcefulness throughout his lifetime.
Despite undertaking multiple ruthless, and gruesome hardships on his journey of survival, Louis remained fearless. During Louie’s earlier years he participated in delinquent behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and stealing at age eleven: “In a childhood of artful dodging, Louie made more than just mischief. He shaped who he would be in manhood” (7). Louie’s natural defiance of authority would be useful in
It was apparent, throughout the story, that Louie was a survivor. There were countless events throughout the story in which Louie´s ability to survive is seen clearly. One of these occurred when Louie clocked the fastest time for the mile in NCAA history. Louie was able to do this despite being spiked, clubbed, and trapped from moving forward in the race. This is apparent when Hillenbrand writes, “He burst through, blew past the race leader, and, with his shoe torn open, shins streaming blood, and chest aching, won easily”(44). Another example of his survival trait appearing strongly in the story occurred in the raft. After lying in a raft for weeks, Louie was still
O 'Brien illustrates to us the necessity for each man to be connected to their old life, telling a story of Mark Fossie flying in his girlfriend to ease his loneliness (104-05). Each soldier found himself facing insurmountable barriers throughout the war, and these small effects and coping mechanisms were often the only necessity that would give them reason to return home again. They needed personal methods of coping with the war, and this primeval survival was the only way to remain a man.
It was pessimism eventually led to Mac’s death, and Louie and Phil ended up surviving the wrath of Japanese prisoner of war camps because of their optimism. Optimism played a large part of Louie and Phil’s survival. How did Louie and Phil maintain their happiness and hope? In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand the two character, Louie and Phil, remained hopeful and optimistic during the war because of their loved ones, determination for victory, and their strength.
The German-born physicist once said , “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character”. In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, the determined Louis Zamperini was a true example of attitude affecting a person’s, character when he survived floating in a raft for 47 days with little food or water. He survived against all odds and even when beaten to the ground daily he still never gave up hope of the wars end. In other words it was his own determination to survive that demonstrated this remarkable story.
Around the same time as trying to make the Olympics, Louie was enrolled in World War 2. However, Louie still trained when he had free time during the war; running along cars to push him to go faster. Louie was sent on missions during the war that were both battles fought in the air and search missions. During one of his search missions, he encountered near death experiences, such as ditching out of the Green Hornet when the engines started to fail. Even though surviving the plane crash was extraordinary, surviving hunger and thirst for 47 days adrift in a raft with two other people is even more strange. The possibility of surviving that long without proper supplies is extremely low and proves that reality is both more intense and stranger than