UNBROKEN

Analysis In this chapter, Hillenbrand again breaks away from Louie’s narrative, this time to relate the experience of Louie’s family and friends back home in America. While Louie lives in a physical, man-made hell, his family must endure an emotional hell. Their love for Louie binds them to his suffering, […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part IV Chapter 21: Belief

Analysis For Louie, there is no escape from the hellish abuses in the Ofuna interrogation center, but there are redemptive moments. The prisoners’ secret rebellions and symbolic acts of resistance, even in the smallest ways, draw the men together. In the midst of his suffering, Louie is able to cling […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part IV Chapter 20: Farting for Hirohito

Analysis The reappearance of Jimmie Sasaki is meaningful because it happens in the context of Louie’s acclimation to the extreme, dehumanizing environment of a POW camp, a place where sadistic people like “The Quack” degrade Louie and his fellow POWs in obsessively cruel ways. At Ofuna, the sight of Jimmie […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part IV Chapter 19: Two Hundred Silent Men

Analysis This time, Hillenbrand treats Louie’s description of heavenly singing only briefly but with more empathy, emphasizing how it brings Louie new hope. Perhaps this otherworldly singing is simply another hallucination. Or perhaps real angels are taking the time to sing comfort and hope to Louie in his personal hell. […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part IV Chapter 18: A Dead Body Breathing

Analysis At last Louie’s “purgatory” ends, but he is left physically wrecked by it. Unlike the traditional idea of purgatory, though, where the purified sinner finally gains respite and redemption, Louie’s rescuer is no savior, but rather a host of Japanese soldiers. Figuratively, the soldiers are a collective host of […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 17: Typhoon

Analysis The most unique aspect of Louie’s vision of “singing in the clouds” is the way in which Hillenbrand retells this sequence of events. Up to this point and later in the biography, Hillenbrand freely colors events with her opinions about them. For example, when she relates statistics about the […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 16: Singing in the Clouds

Analysis In spite of small miracles and saving graces, the Pacific Ocean still maintains its harsh, unyielding hold over the castaways. Adding to the suffering is another hope of rescue that is quickly dashed by enemy gunfire. The third plane Louie spots overhead resuscitates a desperate hope of a new […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 15: Sharks and Bullets

Analysis Along with harmful exposure to the elements, hunger and thirst soon become the dominating punishments of being lost on the ocean. Mac’s chocolate-eating binge and subsequent soul-crushing guilt threaten not only their lives, but also their sanity. Louie, with the determined will of an Olympic athlete, institutes a saving […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 14: Thirst

Analysis The first event of Louie’s ocean “purgatory” is deprivation at the hands of someone who should have been his ally. Mac’s greedy, panicked consumption of all the nutritional chocolate is a betrayal of the highest order, yet there’s nothing to be done about it. Louie can only suffer the […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 13: Missing at Sea

Analysis At this point in the story, Louie’s physical circumstances begin to mirror his spiritual and emotional journey. The vast Pacific Ocean, filled with sharks and empty of hope, symbolizes a type of purgatory for Louie. It’s a place where he is completely lost to the world, helpless to do […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III Chapter 12: Downed