Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand: Character Analysis

The novel Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand stands as a biography that captures the real-life experiences of Louie Zamperini, a man who went from living as a troubled boy, to an impeccable runner, and then into a United States soldier. This novel defines the definition of survival. Not only has it sold millions of copies, but is read in many high schools across the world, and became a huge major motion picture. In the book, there is a character who is very close to Louie named Allen Russell Phillips, or better now as Phil. From the beginning of the story and until the end, Phil has changed dramatically. Furthermore, one of the main symbols shown was sharks. Additionally, one of the themes displayed was survival and resilience. In this paper, the
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He was one of the only survivors in the plane crash and was what literature calls a dynamic character. A dynamic character is a character in a story that changed from what they were in the beginning. Phil went from a tough soldier to a scared-for-his-life prisoner of war. He remains confident and good-spirited on the raft. Despite not bearing any responsibility for the crash, Phil’s strong moral conscience makes him feel guilt for the dead crewmen (LitCharts, int.). He was Louie’s pilot and one of his great friends. He endured very much, almost as much as Louie, and his name should go unheard.
A symbol displayed in the novel was sharks. The sharks represented ever-present danger, and how the characters in the story were always in danger. Sharks are like people: they eat people and do not care who the person is. The sharks represented an ever-present danger because, in the novel, the sharks were always under Louie, Mac, and Phil’s raft. The airmen fear the sharks more than starvation or drowning (LitCharts, int.). When Louie jumped out of the raft, he went into the water k owing that the water was shark-infested. He knew that that either way, whether he jumped out or not, he would have been in