II. Summary of the Main Ideas
In the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, young Louie Zamperini is the troublemaker of Torrance, California. After his life had taken a mischievous turn, his older brother, Pete, managed to convert his love of running away, into a passion for running on the track. At first, Louie’s old habit of smoking gets the best of him, and it is very hard for him to compare to the other track athletes. After a few months of training, coached by Pete, Louie begins to break high school records, and became the fastest high school miler in 1934. After much more hard work, goes to the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 but is no match for the Finnish runners. He trains hard for the next Olympic Games, and hopes to beat the four minute
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The first few months of his service are quiet, and nothing more than training and a few small missions. After a while, he and his crew became like an oiled machine, working efficiently and nearly without error. After the crew’s first major battle, their plane, the Super Man, lands safely although it is filled with over five hundred bullet holes. With the Super Man out of commission, the men are transferred to a less reliable plane, the Green Hornet. While out on a mission in the Pacific, the crew and its plane is shot down, leaving only three men alive. Louie, Phil, and Mac survive for weeks, but Mac eventually succumbs to insanity and dies at sea. In the end, the two men survive for forty-six days, only to be captured and placed in a miserable POW camp. They shuffle around, but stay prisoners until the war ends. Although he has been severely mistreated by a sadistic guard, nicknamed the Bird, Louie survives and returns home.
Upon returning home, Louie marries a woman named Cynthia. They soon have a daughter and Louie begins to develop a drinking problem to help himself cope with the terrors of war. Their young life together reaches a low point when Cynthia catches Louie shaking his infant daughter. Billy Graham comes to town and she convinces Louie to attend one of his preaching sessions. Finding faith in God enables him to turn his life around, and he becomes a motivational
In numerous way a character in an book can be affected or influenced by their culture in the novel Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand a young man by the name of Louie Zamperini is affected at an early age by his culture. While reading the novel an individual would find out that Louie is the son of two Italian immigrants, few years after Louie was born he moves to this small surber city called Torrance with his family. While living in this town Louie family has to fight against prejudices of the citizen not wanting this Italian family living in the neighborhood. In the first few chapter someone would learn that in the 1920s Torrance ,California was very prejudices to the Zamperini family by trying to get the city council members from letting them move into the city.Meanwhile, Louie Italian heritage did have a small effect on him as he was becoming an adult.
In Unbroken: A world war 2 story of survival, resilience, and redemption- by Laura Hillenbrand; young Louie Zamperini is a delinquent of Torrance, California. He steals food, runs around like hell and even dreams of hoping on a train and running away for good. However, Pete, his older manages to turn his life around by turning his love of running from the law into a passion for track and field. Zamperini is so fast that he breaks his high school’s mile record, resulting in him attending the olympics in berlin in 1936. His running career however was put on hold when World war 2 broke out, he enlisted in the the Air Corps and becomes a bombardier. During a harrowing battle, the “superman” gets hit numerous times with japanese bullets destroying
“The commandant announced that we had already covered 42 miles since we left. It was a long time since we had passed beyond the limits of fatigue. Our legs were moving mechanically, in spite of us, without us” (Wiesel 83). Elie was forced to run at two in the morning on a regular basis, and if anyone slowed down or stopped they were immediately shot or beat. Elie was mentally fit and told himself that he wouldn’t give up, however, his father was slower and a lot older, making it much harder for him to be quick on his feet. In Unbroken, the quickness that Louie showed as a child and while growing up, helped him prepare for the future of being quick on his feet as well as being mentally and physically strong. “The same attributes that had made [Louie] the boy terror of Torrance were keeping him alive in the greatest struggle of his life” (Hillenbrand 34). In many of the conditions that Louie faced on a daily basis, only someone with his faith still holding together and can persevere through the struggles in his life is going to make it out
In the Earley book, the author started to talk about the history of mental illness in prison. The mentally ill people were commonly kept in local jails, where they were treated worse than animals. State mental hospitals were typically overcrowded and underfunded. Doctors had very little oversight and often abused their authority. Dangerous experimental treatments were often tested on inmates.
When Louie was a teenager he wanted to find ways to stop people from bullying him. His father helped him learn to defend himself with a punching bag and homemade barbell (Unbroken 9). He soon defeated his bullies. This toughness also helped him during his running career. During a NCAA meet, some runners tried to sabotage him in the middle of a race. The men used the spikes on their shoes to stab and cut Louie. Though he was bleeding and in pain, his toughness helped him to win the race and set a new NCAA mile record of 4:08.3 seconds (Unbroken 44). This would never equal the toughness Louie needed to survive at the POW camps. At these camps, he was locked in small, confined spaces, beaten, humiliated and forced to work hours to just receive small rations of food. Louie could have easily given up and accepted his impending death; instead, he kept his head held high and did not give up. His toughness kept him ready to take on whatever life threw his
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
After World War II, Louie Zamperini writes a letter to Mutsuhiro Watanabe, also known as “the Bird” saying that, “The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love has replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, ‘Forgive your enemies and pray for them.”’ This is demonstrated in the novel, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This tells an emotional story about Louie Zamperini's experiences as an Olympic athlete, World War II veteran, and an American POW. After his Olympic dreams are crushed when he gets drafted at age 24, he experienced things most people cannot even imagine, when he returns he makes
Injuring his ankle again during training for the 1948 Olympics, ruining his chances of racing, had been the last straw for Louie and he turned to drinking. The nightmares of “the Bird”, his captor and main source of abuse as a POW, had gotten so bad where he reached the point of hurting others in his sleep and in flashbacks. His motivation to get a job and stop drinking were virtually nonexistent, until his wife, Cynthia, and some friends relentlessly encouraged him to go to a sermon by a man named Billy Graham. For Louie, reuniting with God had helped him turn his life around. Others may have to take a different route, but there is always something that can help pull people out of their anguish. Bad times don’t last forever, it just takes some patience, optimism, hope, and determination to get through them. Making peace with what happened to him helped Louie’s nightmares to cease and allowed him to visit Japan, offering forgiveness to those that mistreated him. Displaying self-discipline to change, as well as the pure, liberating act of forgiving others, is something anyone is capable of; Louie’s portrayal of this proves his much deserved status as a role
Coach Madison got involved. He helped Louie calm his emotions by telling him that he didn't want to be involved on a team when there was racism. That he was a coach, but he didn't want to coach a team that is racist. They came up with a plan with to let Louie compete in track. Louie and Madison went up against Principle Jasper and Coach Lednecky and convinced them to let Louie run track.
Ooka Shohei named the last chapter of Fires on the Plain “In Praise of Transfiguration.” Through the whole novel, readers witness the protagonist Tamura transform from an innocent soldier to a killer. Readers watch him go from condemning the practice of eating human flesh to eating human flesh for his own survival. At the end, Readers see Tamura’s redemption as he shot Nagamatsu who killed and ate his own comrade Yasuda. What was the difference between two men who both killed and ate human beings? To Tamura, the guilt of eating human flesh distinguished himself from Nagamatsu who cold-bloodily killed Yasuda. As Tamura recalled, “I do not remember whether I shot him at that moment. But I do know that I did not eat his flesh; this I should certainly have remembered.” (224) The fact of him shooting at Nagamatsu had no importance to Tamura. However, his emphasis on not eating
Louie Zamperini had escaped the grievance with his life and has become an advanced soul. Louie Zamperini lived in a miniature house in Torrance, California; he was a fascinating Olympian. He was also held captive as a prisoner of war. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses the life experiences of Louie Zamperini to show the traits of optimistic and rebellious.
In the book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, it follows a Olympian named Louie Zamperini, and his journey. Louie Zamperini was born in Olean, New York, his family later then moved to Torrance, California. Louie is: rebellious, resourceful, among many other things. Louie is who he is because of how he grew up, and the obstacles he overcame. Louie Zamperini shows rebellious and resourceful characteristic traits through his actions.
confronted him, he endured every trial the ocean threw at him. Louie’s strong will to keep
The moment of truth was upon me. The official times, this includes whom qualified for finals, for the 400m relay had been posted. My eyes scanned the page for the bold letters that spell ANDERSON. As I ran my finger across the page to where the times were posted, my ears began to shut out all outside noises, leaving me alone with the thump of my heart and the inhale and exhale of my lungs. Both began to increase in speed as my eyes narrowed in on the time.
Running may be one of the oldest and most developed sports out there. According to legend, the first marathon was run unintentionally in 490 B.C. by a Greek Soldier(James). The soldier ran twenty-five miles to Athens to announce battleground victory over the persians then dropped dead(James). In 1896 the marathon was included in the Olympic games, in Greece, for the first time(James). It was there that the first gold was won by a Greek runner with a time of two hours fifty-eight minutes and fifty seconds(James). The current world record for the fastest finish is two hours three minutes and fifty-nine seconds(James). Marathoning has turned into a world wide activity and every person who participates must endure intense training.