Analytical Essay On Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

War is difficult and is an international problem that affects communities and environments, and may stay with certain people forever. Normal American people called to war to help fight for their freedom against the opposite axis of power, such as Louis Zaperinni as he fought to almost death when he was forced into prisoner of war camps to be tormented and almost starved to death. Such as the Japanese-Americans who were healed in internment camps in their own country and discriminated against for their ethnicity. Japanese-American internees, and how they were made to feel invalid and how they revolted.

In the book Unbroken we hear about Louie, a character who was tormented and dehumanized by the Japanese well he was in the POWS camps, and how no matter what the Japanese would do to them they stayed strong and rebelled when they could. In the novel Unbroken. Louie and Phil have been in the cells for a long time without a lot of food and water. Theyŕe getting dehydrated and on the verge of dying. They are in terrible living conditions with little hope left. “To be deprived  of it is to be dehumanized, leaving victims in a state of profound wretchedness and loneliness, unable to hang on to hope” (hillenbrand 140). The longer Louie and Phil were kept in these terrible living conditions in the camps, the more their life got sucked out of them. As they were stuck in the tiny cells with no remorse of what would happen to them, as the little hope they had slowly gets taken by the Japanese. Since the POWS were so badly treated, that some didn't even want to live anymore, and no matter what guard it was they still got beaten. “To abuse, enslave, and even murder a prinsoner was accpetable, even desirable.(Hillenbrand 151). The men kept deteriorating as if they were in captivity, there were no rules on what the Japanese would or could  do to them as they tried their hardest to get them to crack. Despite the the fact that the American POWS were in the terrible conditions as the humanity was being  drained from them they wont break and try to stay strong as In the Novel Unbrocken  in Ofuna, Commander Fitzgerald was being tortured for answers by the Japanese but stayed strong for his men. “The Japanese had tried to torture information out of Fitzgerald, clubbing him, jamming knives under his fingernails, tearing his fingernails off, and pouring water up his nose until he passed out. Fitzgerald had never broken… did his best to protect his men” (Hillenbrand 157). In conclusion, the POWs were treated terribly by the Japanese guards in the camps. They were tortured, starved, and humiliated which not only led to them being phyyscially weak,  but also torn up mentally. Though they were in a state where anything they could do could lead to death, the POWs stayed true and fought and rebelled when they needed to most.

In the article The Life of Miné Okubo, we hear about the Japanese-Americans and how they were deemed as aliens and how they were demonized by their own country but figure out how to fight back against the disrimination against their ethnicity. In the articleThe Life of Miné Okubo, it states how the Japanese were treated horrendously and  horribly. They knew that this was their home and their country and that they would fight but when they tried they were met with the negativity and harsh comments because of their race. “That act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. We were denied service, and categorized as enemy non-alien. It was outrageous to be called an enemy when you're volunteering to fight for your country, but that was compounded with the word "non-alien," which is a word that means "citizen" in the negative. They even took the word "citizen" away from us, and imprisoned them for a whole year” (Takei). Though their own country turned against them to the Japanese-Americans stayed true to their country, but were deemed as the enemy and were thought to rebel against the U.S. even though they stayed true they were still treated as the enemy and dehumanized when they were referred as a number. Particularly in the article, Mine and Toku get sent to an assembly center that is actually a church in downtown Berkeley. They are given numbers and told to wait for a detailed interview, leading to receiving numbers. “A woman seated near the entrance gave me a card with No. 7.” Miné and Toku were referred to by this number, not by their names.” (Okubo, 19). Overlooked as ¨just another group of Japanese evacuees, Mińe and her family are given numbers, rather than being called by their first or last name… Almost as if they aren’t even people to begin with, just something that can be controlled and moved. Apart from this,  the Japanese-Americans, (treated terribly and deemed as the enemy by their own country) stayed true and eventually when the war ended were greeted and were given gratitude. “It was an amazing act, and when the war ended, the 442nd returned to the United States as the most decorated unit of the entire Second World War. They were greeted back on the White House Lawn by president Truman, who said to them, ‘You fought not only the enemy but the prejudice, and you won’” ​​(Takei). The Japanese-Americans stayed true and positive when there own country engraved them to be the enemy, and their hopes paid off when at the end of the war they were greeted and though the U.S. will never be able to fully apologize they will never be forgotten in the U.S. history for being the most decorated unit and the troubles that were thrown at them by their own country. Nevertheless, the Japanese had it rough, they were deemed aliens and the enemy by their own country as they were kept in camps that gave little to no pay, and little resources. But through all of this their love for their country showed through as they didn't turn to the country that dehumanized them and wouldn’t even call them by name, and at the end of the war forgave and fought back the cruel rules and names put on them.

Japanese-Americans and POWs were dehumanized in the novel Unbroken  and the article  The Life of Miné Okubo but through all of the dehumanization they withstood their human rights. In body paragraph one, Louie Zamperini and the other POWs were kept in camps where they were tormented and abused physically and mentally but when they needed to be strong they stood their ground and defined the Japanese attempts to control them. In body paragraph two, Miné Okubo was forced out of her home and out of her life to an internment camp in her own country deemed them as the enemy and as evil. But through all our tries to push them down, they rose, and can live as normal of a life that one can. So why? Why was Louie kept in the camps? Why did we keep or own citizens in hostile living places? Evil, that's why, when evil and fear takes control, people become vicious and will do whatever they feel is needed to gain control. So in conclusion, Louie Zamperini and Miné Okubo had to be isolated and stripped of dignity because people were scared; scared of war, scared to die. But thankfully the fear of death is what caused a lot of them to rebel against the rules that were put against them to isolate them, and their stories should be remembered so maybe next time we can choose to live in peace rather than fear.