Bent but Not Broken by Haley

Bent but Not Broken by Haley - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

Growing up in a world as critical, tough, and judgmental as this one can be is hard. As young adults about to face the real world without the protection of their parents for the first time, it’s important that we are prepared. It’s important that we understand that, with a little hope, a touch of pride, and a pinch of love, we can handle anything that the world throws our way. That’s a message that the Unbroken hero, Louie Zamperini, shows the world in the phenomenal novel written by Laura Hillenbrand.

The first ingredient to Louie’s insane success was hope. This can be seen as he floated, for days, on a raft, starved, burnt, and dehydrated. He watched his friend die, was shot at by enemy pilots, and was attacked by ravenous sharks. Yet he still believed he was going to make it. Then, being found by an enemy ship, he was thrown into a prisoner of war camp. There he was beaten, battered, ridiculed, and tortured. The camp leader specifically picked Louie out, and did everything he could to make him break. Louie took a punch to the face from every other prisoner in the camp, was forced to work on a broken ankle, was starved, and pushed, physically, beyond his breaking point, but still he survived. He held on to the hope that one day he would make it out, and one day he would see his family again, and that was enough to get him through.

The second characteristic that kept Louie going was pride. The prisoner of war enforcers did everything they could to strip the American soldiers of their human dignity. They were forced to manually empty holes that they defecated in, were not allowed to speak to each other, owned nothing, were given minimal rations, were forced to work for no pay, and they were humiliated, beaten, and spit on by the guards. Many men felt they lost their dignity, and therefor lost their lives. Louie, though, did not. He showed immense character, beating a guard in a footrace, knowing that it would cost him a beating, holding up a heavy wooden beam for nearly a half an hour because he was too proud to let it fall, and turning down comfort for torture in Japan’s news building because he would not agree to talk negatively about his country. Louie showed us that having a sense of dignity outweighs any hardship we will ever come across.

Lastly, and most importantly, Louie was loving. During his time on the raft and at camp, he did everything in his power to make his friends comfortable. He didn’t get mad at Mack for eating all of the emergency food on the raft, and in camp, although he weighed close to that of a child, he sometimes gave his rations to people whom he thought needed them more than he did. And although he went through a spell after the war when he dreamt of killing the Bird, the man who sought to make his life miserable, he overcame it. Louie understood that hatred and selfishness would only bring him more pain. He gave and forgave, and that brought him peace and joy in a time and place where such positive emotions were hard to come by.

Most of us will never face conditions quite as traumatic and testing as Louie Zamperini did. But, in our own way, and in our own lives, we will face things that will try to break us and strip of us of our dignity. The real world is going to try to make us hateful. People will try to conform us to who and what they want us to be. If Louie can stand up and fight on despite his outrageous conditions, then we most certainly can, too. Every young adult needs to read Unbroken. Why? Because no other story teaches people what they are capable of more than this one. The human spirit was not made to be broken.