'Unbroken' By Laura Hillenbrand: Character Analysis

“It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, forgiveness. Forgive everybody” -Maya Angelou(). Louie Zamperini, the main character in the novel Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, evolves throughout the story and resolves with this idea of forgiveness.Louie faces challenges that range from his stealing tendencies as a young boy to surviving a plane crash during WWII, as well as becoming a POW.When he is rescued Louie isn’t the same man that he was before the war, but he goes through an evolution to become even better than when he started. Through Louie’s development of faith, Hillenbrand shows how he is able to forgive those who caused him extensive suffering. Louie transforms from a broken mess into a peaceful man because of his faith. After returning home from his ordeal as a POW, Louie turns to

Directly after returning home, Louie seeked revenge on his most brutal captor, the Bird. “Louie had found a quest to replace his lost Olympics. He was going to kill the bird” (Hillenbrand 361). Louie become fixated on returning to Japan and became even more violent. This all changed when he began serving God and became a new man. He decided to visit his captors for closure rather than revenge. “Louie had been told that all of the men who had tormented him had been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned here in Sugamo. He could speak about and think of his captors, even the Bird, without bitterness, but a question tapped at the back of his mind. If he should ever see them again, would the peace that he had found prove resilient?” (Hillenbrand 385). In fact, when he sat face to face with these men, Louie was filled with exuberance and had “a radiant smile on his face” (Hillenbrand 387). Louie was able to see former torturers with empathy and forgiveness. This change of heart allows Louie to become his old self again, and he is finally able to put his past behind