Unbroken Chapter Summary

The men consist of murderers, thieves, rapists, etc. Their task is parachute to Nazi occupied France and blow up a chateau, hopefully killing high ranked Nazi’s. The men accept the offer in a hope to be granted patrons, all the men have little to no respect for Major Reisman. But throughout their training each of the men begin to gain some amount of respect for the major. Major Reisman starts to see the good in the men, he looked past their records and sees that they all have good in them.

II. Summary of the Main Ideas Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand is a World War II story that follows the life of Louie Zamperini and his journey of survival, resilience, and redemption. We meet Louie as a young boy form Torrance, California who comes from Italian immigrants. As a delinquent boy, he’s always in trouble and running into the law. His older brother, Pete, introduces him to track as a distraction from all his criminal past times, and it turns out he was born to run.

The story then follows his journey into World War II, where the reader understands the struggles he faces as a prisoner, to the way he reacts after returning home. Upon arriving in his hometown following the war, Louie’s faith is developed and strengthened, leading to his forgiveness of the guards who treated him so poorly while imprisoned at camps. Louie undergoes some extremely challenging circumstances throughout his time spent at war. In these times of trial, he would pray, even though his faith wasn’t prominent. One difficulty Louie experienced was the unexpected crash of a B-24 Liberator, called Green Hornet, while on a mission to hunt for another plane that had recently gone down.

She did an absolutely wonderful job of creating this time period with just her words and it’s one of my favorite things about this book. The As a boy, Louie Zamperini was always in trouble, but with the help of his older brother, he turned his life around and channeled his energy into running. He set his first record in high school, “He ran a field of milers off their feet, stopping the watches in 5:03. Three seconds faster than Pete’s record.”(17) He moved on from high school and set his eyes on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Louie “lived and breathed the 1,500 meters and Berlin.”(22) Louie couldn’t get into what he could do best which was the 1,500 meters because “he couldn’t force his body to improve quickly enough to catch his older rivals by summer.

Louie was taken off work duty because his is injured, but begs for a job so he can keep a higher food ration. The Bird forces him to clean up after a pig with his bare hands. Although pushed through this Louie was able to find small victories such as racing civilians which boosted his moral immensely. “He knew what would happen if he won, but the cheering and the accumulation of so many months of humiliation brought something in him to a hard point. He lengthened his stride, seized the lead, and crossed the finish line” (Hillenbrand 216).

In the novel Whirligig, by Paul Fleischman, is a novel about Brent a teenage boy who only really cares about being popular who decides to take his life while driving home from a party but instead he takes Lea Zamora’s life and as punishment Lea’s mother asks Brent to build a whirligig representing Lea at every corner and we see interleaving chapters with people coming across the whirligigs and how their lives have changed because of them. In the important event of Brent killing Lea in a car crash we see a positive effect and consequences on Brent because of this event showing the key idea that all actions have consequences. The positive effects being Brent Learning that we never know who we really are until we step away from other influences around us, that in the journey of life we’ll go through rough patches however it’s how we get out of them that counts and that

Today, some soldiers still have that feeling, but not quite as strong as back then. During the World War II, Joseph Heller joined the Army Air Corps, just like Yossarian. He was inspired to create the character of Yossarian based on his friend who also served in the Army with him. During combat, men see a lot of terrible things, suffer the death of their friends, and later on realize how it is that the whole system really works like. Yossarian has some principles that do not seem as the most common ones to be thinking about when fighting a war.

After being caught without a pass in Rome, he is faced with a hard decision… Either agree with the policy of his commanders, which is that his fellow pilots and soldiers face eighty more missions, or face the military court marshal. He decides against either of these, and instead runs away to Sweden, which at the time was a neutral country, where he could regain control over his own life. Deciding to rather run from the military, then put his men’s lives at stake eighty more times, truly does show the heroicness of the character Yossarian. While fighting the war, Yossarian is faced by several true “Catch 22” moments, especially while deciding how to get out of his predicament after being caught in Rome, and while trying to prove his insanity to be sent home. The “Catch 22” situations greatly help in showing his heroicness throughout the book.

As the story continues, Sonny’s relationship with his father grew, peaking when Homer comes to witness the last few rocket launches. Homer is delighted to light the fuse for the last rocket. By the end of the book, you can tell how much their relationship improved over the years of the Rocket Boys. Sonny’s perseverance enabled him to succeed in many areas of his life. Sonny was able to teach himself calculus, and eventually go to college.

Little things would upset him or bring back memories of the war because of the ordeal through which he went. In Unbroken, Louis Zamperini and his friends have emotional issues from the war. For example, Louie freaked out when his family played a broadcast he sent out from Japan. Louie also became an alcoholic after the war, due to his emotional state. One of Louis’s friends flipped a table upon seeing rice, one of the sole foods he consumed as a POW.

For example, when Louie, Phil, and Mac were stranded at sea for forty-six days, he had kept everyone’s spirits and hopes up so they wouldn’t all be overcome with insanity. Louie and his crew had just crashed their B-24D Army Air Force bomber into the Pacific Ocean and the only crew members that had survived were Louie, Phil, and Mac. These three men had made their way onto the inflatable life raft where they had suffered from a lack of food and water, heat stroke, poor hygiene, and just overall terrible conditions. But, to keep everyone’s minds sharp Louie suggested singing songs and to keep talking to each other about anything that would keep their minds off of the current situation that they were in. While the men were on the raft Louie said, “Within a few days of the crash, Louie began peppering the other two with questions on every conceivable subject…They told and retold stories…Phil sang church hymns; Louie taught the other two the lyrics to “White Christmas”(page 152-153).

Unbroken is a biography by Laura Hillenbrand about Louie Zamperini’s entire life. Louie Zamperini is a son of Italian Immigrants that moved to Torrance, California. He starts out as a problem child that would steal, drink and smoke, but he eventually straightens out through sports and became an Olympian later in life. After he went to the Olympics, he gets drafted into World War 2. During that time he was in planes working as the person who drops bombs on their enemies.

Special Agent Leonard Hatton was on his way to work that fatal morning when the towers were struck and he responded immediately. Although Hatton wasn 't tasked with responding to emergencies he still went and saved many lives. He served the country as a Marian, a firefighter, an FBI agent(Heros to Remember) and he gave his life during the country’s time of need. Ordinary people came to do amazing things on this day including Tom Burnett who was the COO and vice president of Thoratec Corporation and was on flight 93 when he noticed it had been hijacked like the others. Himself and other passengers decided to fight back and gain control of the plane.

This completely lifted his confidence he could finally see that he was more than the troublemaker of his family. His success grew rather quickly, because his goal was to get to the next Olympic games. He is always training and training to keep improving. When it comes almost time to try out for the Olympic trials Louie knows that he will never be fast enough to qualify for the mile race he has been training for. Instead of giving up and calling it quits on his running career Louie takes a different approach.

Brian is on his way to meet his father on his way the pilot has a massive heart attack and dies. This forces Brian to have to fly the plane all on his own. The plane is starting to run out of fuel and he doesn 't know what to do. This causes Brian to think quickly about what he needs to do. Brian decided that he would wait for the fuel to run out and land in the water and escape the plane while still on the ground.