59 pages • 1 hour read
Laura HillenbrandUnbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation): An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive
Nonfiction | Biography | YA | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
On June 22, 1943, Louie Zamperini floats in the Pacific Ocean along with two other crewmen from a crashed bomber during World War II. They drift on two rafts for 27 days and float over one thousand miles. The men are emaciated, starving, and covered in sores. Sharks swim around them.
Louie is 26 and “one of the greatest runners in the world” (2). He and his crewmates were searching for a lost warplane when they crashed.
The men attempt to signal a plane with flares and dye in the water. After the plane flies past and turns back the men realize it’s a Japanese bomber. It opens fire on them and they jump into the water. It returns after they surface. Louie’s companions are too weak to swim and remain on the raft as Louie jumps again into the shark-infested water.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The One-Boy Insurgency”
The German airship Graf Zeppelin tours the world in 1929. It passes over New York City, Europe, where Anne Frank is just born and Adolf Hitler begins his ascent to power, then Siberia and Japan, and finally the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, California, where 12-year-old Louie Zamperini lives.
Louie, born in 1917, descends from Italian immigrants. Throughout his childhood, he is rambunctious and tough to control. He smokes by age five and drinks by age eight. He steals food from neighbors and money from vending machines. When he later recounted his youth, his stories ended with “…then I ran like mad” (8). His parents, Louise and Anthony, fail to control him.
Louie’s brother, Pete, two years his senior, is smarter and more popular than Louie, whom other kids bully. The bullying and rampant prejudice against Italians in the 1920s compels Louie to study fighting to defend himself. His short temper gets him in further trouble for fighting everyone: bullies, girls, teachers, and even a police officer.
The Depression impoverishes Louie’s family. They have no money for education beyond high school and Louie has no ambitions. Hitler rises to power in Europe on the back of eugenics, the “fake science” that results in sterilization or murder of “unfit” people. Louie fears for his safety. Another kid he knows is institutionalized as “feebleminded” (12). To atone for his past actions, he behaves better. He cleans the house, stops stealing, and tries to give food in recompense for what he stole. With so many wrongs in his past, his efforts fail.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Run Like Mad”
At age 14, Louie discovers a key to the Torrance High gymnasium. He sneaks students into basketball games through the back door, but the principal discovers this and expels him. Pete speaks with the principal in Louie’s defense and convinces him to allow Louie to join the school’s track team.
Pete is a track star. He set the school record for the mile as a senior in 1932. He recognizes Louie’s speed as his younger brother flees the authorities. Pete forces Louie to train regularly.
However, in the summer of 1932, after a fight with his parents, Louie leaves home. His mother is distraught and gives him a sandwich. His father begrudgingly gives him two dollars—a lot of money for his family during the Depression. He hitchhikes to Los Angeles with a friend and they jump a train.
Their trip is a disaster. They sleep outdoors or in doorways at night. They get stuck in an overheated train car. When they force their way out, they get caught and kicked off the moving train at gunpoint. Louie remembers his parents’ sadness at his departure. He returns home and dedicates himself to running.
Louie runs day and night and trains his lung capacity. He breaks his brother’s record in the 880-yard race and then the mile. He runs against college students for better competition but beats them easily. In the two-mile UCLA Southern California Cross-Country meet, he beats everyone by more than a quarter of a mile. His confidence builds and he realizes his potential. The town and newspapers follow his success.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “The Torrance Tornado”
Louie’s training and success continue into 1934. At the Southern California Track and Field Championship, against “the best field of high school milers ever assembled” (21), he wins and sets the national mile record at 4:21.3—a record that would stand for 19 years.
In Torrance, he becomes a hero. The town forgives him for his childhood rebellion. They nickname him the “Torrance Tornado” and pack into the stands of each of his races.
Louie sets his sights on the 1936 Olympics. The favorite, Glenn Cunningham, set the world record for the 1,500-meter run at 4:06.7. At the Olympics, Cunningham would be 27, the time when most distance runners peak; Louie would be 19.
Louie trains for the 1,500-meter run. However, in the spring of 1936, he realizes that he cannot improve fast enough for the Olympics. Instead, he sets his sights on the 5,000-meter race—an event he has never competed in before.
In May, with only two months to train before the Olympics, Louie qualifies. The 5,000 is dominated by Don Lash and Norman Bright. Louie hopes to finish third. The top three qualifiers will go to the Olympics in Berlin.
Trials are held in New York in July, where the heat regularly breaks 106 degrees. Several men drop out during the race due to the heat. Bright staggers and rolls his ankle then falls far behind. Dash and Louie finish right next to each other and the race is declared a tie. In only his fourth time running the 5,000, Louie qualifies for the Olympics.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Plundering Germany
On the ship to Germany, the athletes struggle with space to train. Louie gains 12 pounds due to the luxurious accommodations and his efforts to eat everything he can find.
In Germany, the luxury continues. The athletes have a complete village. Although Louie trains and Pete inspires him, he doesn’t expect to medal, as the Finnish runners dominate the field.
During the race, Don Lash leads but the Finns abuse him and elbow him in the chest. He falls far behind. Louie stays with the second tier of runners throughout the race in 12th place, until the final lap. He runs his last lap in 56 seconds—well above the average 70-second pace. He finishes in eighth place.
His fast last lap gains the attention of Adolph Hitler, who watches from the stands. His minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, leads Louie to Hitler in his box. Hitler reaches down and touches hands with Louie, stating, “Ah, you’re the boy with the fast finish” (37).
That night, Louie puts on a uniform and goes out into Berlin with a friend to celebrate. After drinking, they come across the Chancellery with Hitler’s offices inside. Seeing a Nazi flag hanging from the building, he attempts to steal it but is stopped by an armed guard. Louie convinces the guard he just wanted a souvenir from his time in “beautiful Germany” and the guard lets him take the flag and go.
Back at home, Torrance throws a parade for Louie as he thinks of his future. The next Olympics are in Tokyo in 1940, where Louie hopes to win gold in the 1,500.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “The Red Circle”
Louie attends college at USC, where he breaks records regularly and gets his time down to 4:13.7. At the college championships, the other runners collude to injure Louie during the race. They box him in, stomp and damage him with their cleats, and eventually elbow him so hard they break his rib. In the final lap, he breaks free, injured and bleeding. He runs a 4:08.3. His time is the fifth fastest mile ever and a collegiate record that would stand for 15 years.
Meanwhile, in Asia, Japan invades China. Hitler invades Poland. War breaks out across Europe, and the Olympics are canceled.
In the summer of 1940, as Louie works in an Aircraft factory, the United States Congress approves a draft. Louie elects to sign up for the Army and joins the Air Corps. He arrives at training in November of 1941.
Introduction-Part 1 Analysis
Hillenbrand begins the story of Louie Zamperini in media res, which means “in the middle of things,” with an event that will later be revisited in the text. The decision to start with a scene where Louie is near death, repeatedly jumping into shark-infested waters to avoid being shot by a Japanese bomber, hooks the reader from the start as well as builds suspense for the events to follow. The suspenseful tone carries throughout the text and reveals information to the reader that Louie did not know at the time. This builds the danger surrounding his situation. This narrative approach reflects the uncertain realities and dangers of war that Louie battles with throughout the text.
Louie is characterized from childhood as someone who is free-spirited and troublesome by nature, but also hardworking and dedicated. When he discovers running, with the help of his brother Pete, he devotes his entire life to it. He does “almost nothing but run[ning],” gives up drinking and smoking and works on his lung capacity (16). This characterization of Louie as someone passionate and driven begins the development of the theme of Strength and Resilience. Despite training as hard as he does, when Louie realizes that he is not fast enough to qualify for the Olympics in the mile, he instead switches to the 5,000. He is unwilling to admit failure, showing his resilience, and qualifying in a race for which he has little experience.
Louie finds strength from others throughout the early years of his life. For example, Pete is a key figure in Louie’s life in the first part of the text. As Louie struggles with authority and lacks direction in his life, Pete makes one last effort to save him by pleading with the principal to allow him to run for the track team. Pete trains each day with Louie and sends him motivational letters while he is in Berlin for the Olympics. Additionally, despite his troubled relationship with his parents, Louie finds support from them. After fighting with his parents, he runs away from home, but is stopped by his father as he leaves: “There was his father, grim-faced, two dollars in his outstretched hand. It was a lot of money for a man whose pay didn’t last the week” (15). Even though he caused them trouble throughout his childhood, his parents continue to support him, something they will do throughout the narrative.
Additionally, the willingness of the town of Torrance to support Louie in his Olympic endeavors and forgive his childhood wrongdoings conveys the theme of The Power of Forgiveness. First, out of fear, Louie attempts to gain forgiveness from the town, as he “baked biscuits and gave them away [and] doled out nearly everything he stole.” However, “each attempt Louie made to right himself ended wrong” (12). However, through his discovery of his love for running, his hard work, and his success, Torrance takes pride in the person that Louie becomes and supports him. Louie qualifies for the Olympics and “receive[s] some 125 telegrams. ‘Torrance has gone nuts,’ reads one. ‘Village has gone screwy,’ reads another. There was even one from the Torrance police” (28). In response, Louie writes that he “will run harder in Berlin” (28). The support of the town—and more importantly, from Pete—motivates Louie and gives him direction in his life. He overcomes the wrongs he committed as a child and does his best to make everyone proud.
The narrative explores Louie’s childhood and college experiences and includes the broader history. This technique continues throughout when the narrative steps back from the story of Louie’s life to situate his experiences within history and contextualize them. For example, as Louie prepares for the 1940 Olympics, his efforts are framed in the events that occur in Europe and Asia with the rise of Hitler, the Axis Powers, and the beginning of World War II. In the middle of the description of Louie’s experiences at USC is the passage, “In 1937, Japan sent its armies smashing into China. Two years later, Hitler invaded Poland, and war began in Europe. America was pulled into both conflicts” (44). This weaving of narrative and historical context reflects the inevitability of war’s intrustion and sets up the theme of The Impact of War. It infiltrates the present for everyone and impacts their futures, as it does for Louie when the outbreak of war leads to the cancellation of the 1940 Olympics.
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