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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 …show more content…
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
In the events of September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 world war 2 erupted and up came a man his name was Louis Zamperini. During Louie's life as a young adult, he decided to join the army to defend his country. Then during one of his missions on the way to the bomb site two, two of the four engines on their b-24 malfunctioned sending them plummeting into the ocean. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses the life experiences of Louie Zamperini to show the traits of optimistic and resourceful.
War. Author Michael Shaara does an excellent job of showing the bravery and valor of
Later On in the book, Bill Graham comes to town and persuades his wife to change her mind, and she convinces Zamperini to attend one of his preaching sessions. Zamperini remembered the bargain he made to god while stuck on the raft and attends the meetings. He then then found faith from the sessions which helped him quit drinking and becoming a motivational speaker. Years later, Zamperini forgives all those who did him wrong during the war especially “the bird”. He reaches out to the bird when he finds out hes still alive but the the bird refuses. During the olympics in 1998, Zamperini carries the olympic torch past Naoetsu, and puts his dark past behind him. Hillenbrand Emphasis on personal strength and tenacious determination to keep going and pushing through as something to walk away with. I would rate this book a 10. The book is well written and gives a good insight into the life of a prisoner of war during World War 2. I believe that since Zamperini was a long distance runner, and long distance requires a certain mentality to push yourself for miles and miles that he was able to endure and
Laura Hillenbrand’s novel Unbroken incorporates the improbable life of the main character, Louie Zamperini. She introduces both the inspiring and powerful journey that Louie encounters in his life as he grows up. Hillenbrand looks to and successfully does catch the versatility of the human soul. Zamperini’s story including his involvement in World War II gives a persuasive stage in which the author demonstrates numerous qualities of Louie. Leaving readers to appreciate his courage, quality, grit and above all else, his bravery. “Confident that he was clever resourceful, and bold enough to escape any predicament, [Louie] was almost incapable of discouragement. When history carried him into war, this resilient optimism would define him.” Louie
The impression that Bissinger is giving to the readers is that not only is football an awesome sport, but that even if you have tough obstacles blocking you from your aspirations you should never surrender. For instance, Mike Winchell struggles with self-conscious about his family economic circumstances, but that doesn’t stop him from chasing his goal to defeat Midland Lee for a scholarship. Even though They didn’t win, if they did win getting the scholarship could have gotten him out of poverty and the prison of self-consciousness. This brings me to feeling empathy for Mike Winchell because I can relate feeling self-conscious maybe not economically, but in a way that I know suffering in that pain can pull you down to the point where you want to give
In David Foster Wallace’s essay, “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” he argues that the true talent of star athletes is to completely engross themselves in playing the game. While worshipping the “abstractions like power and grace and control” of Tracy Austin, he notes the contradicting quality, her inability to articulate such abstracts (143). He continues by writing, as people’s expectation while reading the autobiography of a successful athlete is to take a peek at the secrets of their god given gifts, whereas the expectations are rarely met, making spectators, such as himself, disappointed. As a matter of fact, Wallace suspects that the exceptional talent of athletes may be brought out by their apathetic and ignorant nature when it
When individuals face obstacles in life, there is often two ways to respond to those hardships: some people choose to escape from the reality and live in an illusive world. Others choose to fight against the adversities and find a solution to solve the problems. These two ways may lead the individuals to a whole new perception. Those people who decide to escape may find themselves trapped into a worse or even disastrous situation and eventually lose all of their perceptions and hops to the world, and those who choose to fight against the obstacles may find themselves a good solution to the tragic world and turn their hopelessness into hopes. Margaret Laurence in her short story Horses of the Night discusses the idea of how individual’s responses
Terry knew that aches and pains are common in athlete’s lives. At the end of his first year of university there was a new pain in his knee. One morning Terry woke up to see that he could no longer stand up. A week later Terry found out that it was not just an ache he had a malignant tumor; his leg would have to be cut off six inches above the knee. Terry’s doctor told him that he had a chance of living but the odds were fifty to seventy percent. He also said that he should be glad it happened now fore just 2 years ago the chance of living was fifteen percent. The night before his operation a former coach brought Terry a magazine featuring a man who ran a marathon after a similar operation. Terry didn’t want to do something small if he was going to do something he was going to do it big. "I am competitive" Terry said, "I’m a dreamer. I like challenges. I don’t give up. When I decided to do it, I knew it was going to be all out. There was no in between Terry’s sixteen month follow up he saw all the young people suffering and getting weak by the disease. He never forgot what he saw and felt burdened to thoughts that died to run this marathon. He was one of the lucky one in three people to survive in the cancer clinics. Terry wrote asking for sponsorship " I could not leave knowing that these faces and feelings would still be here even though I would be set free of mine, s...
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
In life, there are times when every human being will face challenging obstacles. In the beginning of the novel The Natural, by Bernard Malamud, demonstrates a theme that heroes are not always what we expect them to be as people, and more often than not their flaws bring their personal tragedy. Roy’s life changing experience happen when he was in Harriet’s hotel room and was shot in the stomach by her. At that moment, of course Roy has struggled with keeping up with his baseball career but, toward the end not only that heroes have their priorities straight in life: they become a better human being once they have overcome the traumatic experience. It took Roy years to overcome his difficult experience that put his baseball career in jeopardy. Throughout his experience, he never gave up on his passion and love for baseball, which motivated him to try to become the best baseball player. From there, he eventually got back on that baseball field as not only a new and improved baseball player but an inspiration to people. Tragic downfalls of heroes in our society made them a stronger human being as they are today. As for Roy, throughout his long, tragic downfall, he eventually learned a lot of life experiences
The main characters in Unbroken and Deliverance start living relatively normal lives of growing up and finding success. Louis is on track to becoming an Olympic athlete and Ed is co-owner of a graphics consulting business. Laura Hillenbrand describes young Louis as defiant, untamed, and lacking ambition. He tended to get into a lot of trouble with not only his parents but also his town. In high school, he becomes a runner where he learned discipline, perseverance despite the pain, and how to outsmart runners that tried to prevent Louis from winning. When war breaks out, those attributes he learned being an Olympic runner aided and allowed him to step up to become a leader when his plane crashes in the
Hillenbrand who was born on May 15, 1967, in Fairfax, Virginia, effectively dialogs an intense testimony of redemption. A redemption that through Hillenbrand’s words, but Louis (Louie) Zamperini’s experiences, has praised her with the Time magazine nonfiction book award in 2010 along with the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award. Hillenbrand through her usage of anticipation and suspenseful tone explores the ability to have hope as the only coping mechanism of surviving. A coping mechanism, where Louie Zamperini undergoes a human resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit brought by the troubles of mankind and unfortunate consequences of life. If an account of an individual who faces all odds against him and tells his story of finding himself isn’t reason enough to be in our children’s curriculum than what is? Now more than ever, teenagers especially are conflicted in finding themselves in this complex world. A world that continuously faces debates between traditional to modern views, where altering perceptions of what’s right and wrong is slightly bent. Having a book that goes against the inequity of mankind, it would teach kids of today’s and tomorrow’s that sometimes rules have to be broken, in order to be liberated.
In this event, Fred Collins also comes to the realization; he was “squared up the face of death” (4; 144) but was “mainly surprised” (4; 146), because he was not apprehensive in the least. Collins begins to address himself as “a hero” (4; 154) because he does “not feel this fear” (4;154) even though he was “no more than a dead man” (5;198). The examples of staying calm within a time of terror, whereas in previous times Collins reacted as a foolish young man, displays Collins as a true representation of an approvable dynamic
book remains a true testimony to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
One of the best representations I could give to someone would be a 93-year old man that almost made it to the Olympic USA table tennis team. Although he has been playing table tennis for 86 years and first started when he was 7 years old he still could not make it past the recreational level. You would think that after 86 years of playing the sport you love you would accomplish your dreams, sadly after all these years he still hasn’t made it to the Olympics, his ultimate dream. Now his dream will forever be left unaccomplished and be left for the next hopeful table tennis player. If this guy who was better than most by far with a crazy amount of dedication couldn’t make it, this just shows how hard it is to make it past the recreational