69 pages • 2 hours read
Laura HillenbrandUnbroken
Laura HillenbrandNonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
PREFACE-PART 1, CHAPTER 5
Reading Check
1. What is the name of the German dirigible that circumnavigated the globe in 1929?
2. Who was Louie’s role model and best reformer?
3. Who did Louie travel with on the way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
4. What happened to the 1940 Olympics in Helsinki?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Hillenbrand’s use of the metaphor “one boy insurgency” (Chapter 1) convey about Louie’s character?
2. How did Pete help set his brother on a new path?
3. What was unusual about the tone of the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Berlin, 1936?
4. What is so strange about Louie’s friend Jimmie Sasaki?
Paired Resource
“Ode to Peace or Prelude to War? The Opening Ceremonies of the Berlin Olympics as Political Theater”
- This article details the political significance of the 1936 Olympic Opening Ceremonies.
- The spirit of the Olympics, as conveyed through the Opening Ceremonies, is to celebrate Human Dignity and achievements.
- Compare Hillenbrand’s account of the ceremony with Smith’s. In what ways did Nazi organizers attempt to use the ceremony to undermine universal human dignity? How did athletes respond?
PART 2, CHAPTERS 6-11
Reading Check
1. How did Wake Island captives maintain their spirits?
2. What was the cause of the vast majority of United States Air Force deaths?
3. How does Louice suggest they stop Superman when the brakes fail on their way back from the Nauru mission?
4. What did it mean for the crew to “volunteer” to find Clarence Corpening’s plane?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What was difficult about flying a Liberator B-24?
2. What routine problems with Air Force planes contributed to high mortality rates among airmen in the Pacific Theatre?
3. How does Hillenbrand build tension regarding Superman’s mission to Naura?
4. What does it mean that the Green Hornet has been “cannibalized” and what effect does this detail have on the narrative?
Paired Resource
“Gremlins: A Pilot’s Worst Nightmare”
- This article which first appeared in MHQ-The Quarterly Journal of Military History explores the role of storytelling and folklore in fighter pilots’ ability to cope with danger and explain the unknown.
- Aviators told stories about gremlins to Preserve Human Dignity by covering human error, to cope with the dismal realities of flying, and to maintain Faith and Hope by giving name and substance to the ineffable.
- Consider the grim statistics and lurid stories Hillenbrand uses to convey how dangerous the air war in the Pacific was. What psychological burdens did knowledge of the odds create for soldiers like Zamperini and what role did the supernatural, superstition, and fantastic play in easing that psychological burden?
PART 3, CHAPTERS 12-17
Reading Check
1. Who takes command when pilot Russel Allen Phillips (Phil) is too injured in the head to command after the Green Hornet’s crash?
2. What was Louie more concerned about on the raft than sustenance?
3. What is the only edible part of the shark?
4. What does Louie hear that the others do not as they approach the Doldrums?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is a ration D Hershey bar designed to do?
2. What explanations does Hillenbrand offer in speculation for the difference in McNamara’s response to being lost at sea?
3. What surprising benefits did the castaways reap from their life on the raft?
4. What conflicting information do the soldiers that picked them up off the Marshall Islands give to Phil and Louie regarding the Zero that strafed their raft?
Paired Resource
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- Written by Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this poem follows the plight of a lost ship’s crew following the senseless murder of an albatross.
- Often interpreted as a Christian allegory, the poem explores the punishments for wrong-doing and the possibility of atonement and Forgiveness if one cultivates Faith and Hope.
- Phil immediately recalls the poem when the first albatross lands on their raft. How, despite differences in style, structure, and circumstances, do both stories explore the role of faith and hope as well as forgiveness in surviving a seemingly impossible situation?
PART 4, CHAPTERS 18-33
Reading Check
1. What, according to Chapter 18, is as essential to life as food, water, and oxygen?
2. What did the guards at Ofuna make Louie do to humiliate Louie because they knew he was weakened by camp life?
3. What policy made POWs look at an Allied Victory with both hope and dread?
4. What detail do both Phil and Louie leave out of their press interviews after the war regarding their castaway account?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What factors does Hillenbrand offer in explanation for why soldiers looked down on POWs?
2. What motivations does Hillenbrand offer to explain Watanabe’s erratic and dangerous behavior?
3. How did POWs maintain their dignity?
4. What did POW John Falconer, who described the complete devastation of the atomic bomb as beautiful, mean when he said he felt the ends justified the means?
Paired Resource
Tokyo Rose: Victim of Propaganda and “Tokyo Rose, Tokyo, Japan, 09/20/1945”
- This short biography of Iva Toguri and a short transcript of one of her Radio Tokyo segments explore the impact of Japanese radio propaganda in the Pacific and the drive to survive that led many to work for enemy institutions.
- Radio propaganda segments aimed to undermine the Faith and Hope of soldiers by making them homesick and subtly stoking their fears and propagandists were often reviled, their tactics considered beneath Human Dignity.
- Compare the propaganda Louie unwittingly participates in with that of the “Tokyo Rose” segment. What similarities in style and scope do they share and how effective might this style have been for undermining soldier’s hope and faith in institutions? Based on Toguri’s story, was Louie’s attitude of disdain for propagandists warranted?
“Why These WWII Sex Slaves Are Still Demanding Justice”
- Content warning: Stories include references to and descriptions of sexual trafficking and sexual violence. In addition to POWs, Japanese atrocities extended to occupied civilians, as this article following the stories of several women enslaved for sexual purposes by Japanese soldiers attests.
- The women connect their need to be heard and formally acknowledged to The Preservation of Human Dignity.
- Compare the atrocities faced by POWs like Zamperini and the atrocities faced by women like Narcisa Claveria. What factors might account for the willingness of officials to acknowledge stories like Zamperini’s while downplaying those of civilians like Claveria? Considering that Unbroken has even been made into a movie, what might this unequal publicity say about when, how, and about whose experiences we are willing to listen?
PART 5, CHAPTER 34-EPILOGUE
Reading Check
1. What does Louie plan to do to save himself from his postwar unraveling?
2. What traits do both Louie and Watanabe both suffer in their postwar lives?
3. What convinces Cynthia not to go through with her plan to divorce Louie?
4. To what does Louie dedicate his life after the war is truly over?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What made his new fame so difficult and taxing for Louie?
2. In what way are Cynthia and Louie similar?
3. How does Hillenbrand depict Watanabe in the postwar segment of the story?
4. Why does Louie return to Japan and visit his captors in Sugamo Prison?
“A New Look at Japan’s Unit 731 Wartime Atrocities and a U.S. Cover-Up”
- This article from the Asia Pacific Journal explores Chinese reactions to the United States’s policy of leniency toward perpetrators of medical atrocities in Unit 731.
- This article explores the consequences of what Hillenbrand frames as the politically expedient Forgiveness of Japanese war criminals.
- Though Hillenbrand’s messaging regarding forgiveness is mostly positive, some argue that the choice to stop pursuit of criminals such as Watanabe in the name of forgiveness and cooperation allowed Japan to deny culpability for its crimes. In what ways might lenience for wrongdoing complicate the concept of forgiveness? Can a figure like Watanabe be forgiven if they persist in believing they did no wrong?
Recommended Next Reads
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
- Philbrick crafts a compelling narrative of survival and brutality around the events following the crash of the whaling ship Essex in 1820 that left survivors adrift at sea for more than 90 days.
- Shared themes include faith and hope, the preservation and loss of human dignity.
- Shared topics include survival, harrowing adventure at sea, and the psychological toll of surviving at sea.
- In the Heart of the Sea on SuperSummary
Hiroshima by John Hersey
- This account of the aftermath of the city in the wake of the first atomic bomb was one of the first nonfiction books to adopt literary and narrative techniques in a style that would later become New Journalism.
- Shared themes include survival and the effects of war on humans.
- Shared topics include WWII atrocities, survival in the face of terrible odds, and the moral implications of total war.
- Hiroshima on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
PREFACE-PART 1, CHAPTER 5
Reading Check
1. Graf Zeppelin (Preface)
2. His older brother, Pete (Chapter 2)
3. Jesse Owens and Glenn Cunningham (Chapter 4)
4. It is canceled. (Chapter 5)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. The metaphor characterizes young Louie as irrepressible, rebellious, and a constant worry for those in his path. (Chapter 1)
2. Not only did Pete encourage the principal to let Louie join sports but he began coaching him in track and sports. (Chapter 2)
3. It was full of pro-Nazi propaganda and aggrandizement as well as in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles due to open army drilling. (Chapter 4)
4. He claimed to want to educate Japanese Americans about the food scarcity in Japan and encourage them to send goods to help, but Torrance, California, had few Japanese families to justify his many trips. (Chapter 5)
PART 2, CHAPTERS 6-11
Reading Check
1. Singing Christmas carols (Chapter 6)
2. Accidental crashes (Chapter 8)
3. Parachutes (Chapter 9)
4. An order (Chapter 10)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. The B-24 was called the “flying coffin” because it was cramped, clumsy, unwieldy during take-off and turning, and had high, light wings that were prone to shearing in the water. (Chapter 6)
2. Air Force planes led to many deaths because they were quickly mass-produced using untested technology and often had assembly errors or design flaws. Because they had to fly long distances between Pacific islands, these planes were pushed to their limits on almost every flight, and even small navigation errors might mean missing land by hundreds of miles. These planes were poorly maintained due to frequency of need and lack of supplies—fuel sometimes ran out between islands or leaked into cabins where men smoked, leading to explosions. In combat, huge bombers could not take evasive action or outmaneuver Japan’s fast Zeroes and, due to tight formations, collisions and friendly fire were common. (Chapter 8)
3. She unspools the airmen’s approach slowly, mimicking the dog-legged approach airmen used to mask their starting position, then paces the battle sequences more quickly, adding visceral tactile, audio, and visual imagery as well onomatopoeia to capture the crew’s experience of chaos, and offering dream-like or ironic details to add a sense of the surreal, such as a bullet wound shaped like Texas, the tickle of bullets, and the time-suspended detail of the enemy pilot’s white scarf bright in the sun. (Chapter 9)
4. Though it has passed inspection, some of the plane’s provisions and parts have been reallocated to crews on planes destined for combat missions, a bad omen that helps foreshadow the disaster to come. (Chapter 11)
PART 3, CHAPTERS 12-17
Reading Check
1. Louie (Chapter 12)
2. His mental state (Chapter 14)
3. The liver (Chapter 16)
4. Singing in the clouds, or an angelic choir (Chapter 16)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. It has waterproof wrapping, a high melting point, is extremely bitter to discourage overeating, and, because it is meant to impart the highest amount of sustenance for a small space, each square is densely caloric. (Chapter 12)
2. Unlike Phil and Louie, Mac had never seen combat, and he had not developed a trusting relationship with them. Further, while Phil had Cecy and his religion to motivate him and Louie was always positive and looking for a challenge to overcome, Mac seemed unable to summon an inner source of motivation to endure the extraordinary challenges. (Chapter 14)
3. In addition to offering refuge from the noise of the modern era and the transcendent beauty of the ocean, being so close to death and cut off from distractions sharpened the mind. (Chapter 16)
4. The soldiers assure Phil and Louie that such actions are against their honor code. (Chapter 17)
PART 4, CHAPTERS 18-33
Reading Check
1. Dignity (Chapter 18)
2. Race (Chapter 20)
3. Kill-all orders (Chapter 22)
4. McNamara’s chocolate theft (Chapter 33)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In a time of great nationalism and racism worldwide, Japanese nationalists also believed themselves to be the superior race; their culture of honor and shame meant that low-ranking soldiers, routinely abused and humiliated, sought to transfer their oppression onto their captives. In addition, they were instructed to avoid the unbearable shame of surrender by fighting to the death or else killing themselves, leading to the assumption that those captured were cowards unworthy of human dignity. (Chapter 19)
2. In addition to citing that many colleagues and POWs assumed Watanabe had a mental disorder and believed he was sexually aroused by abusing others, Hillenbrand writes that because of his wealth and education, he believed he deserved to be an officer, but he was rejected and sought to compensate his humiliation through abusing others. (Chapter 23)
3. Acts of subversion ranging from surreptitious and overt forms of communication to working slowly to spying and committing acts of theft and sabotage wherever they could helped POWs retain a semblance of control and belief that they could still aid the war effort. (Various chapters)
4. POWs believed Japanese civilians, whom they saw training in preparation for an Allied invasion at the end of the war, and the Japanese military, embroiled in a nationalistic culture of honor and shame, were prepared to fight to the last person standing. Extending the war meant more abuse and suffering for prisoners. Weighing the suffering he had endured and the casualties of an invasion against the destroyed city seemed justified to Falconer. (Chapter 33)
PART 5, CHAPTER 34-EPILOGUE
Reading Check
1. Kill Watanabe (Chapter 35)
2. Sleeplessness and aloneness (Chapter 36)
3. Billy Graham’s sermon (Chapter 38)
4. The Victory Boy’s Camp (Epilogue)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Suffering from what is now called PTSD without adequate help or support and being asked to share his story and retell his private suffering to strangers who could not properly empathize contributed to his sense of isolation and caused tremendous anxiety, feelings of shame, and rage which he sought to escape. (Chapter 34)
2. Both Cynthia and Louie are rebels at heart and drawn to each other’s passion, independence, and love for adventure. (Chapter 34)
3. Hillenbrand’s narration of Watanabe’s loneliness, anxiety, and inability to internalize the terrible acts he committed both humanize the character and make him seem pitiful without his power, allowing readers to better understand how Louie can find sympathy, common ground, and closure with his abuser. (Various chapters)
4. This act tests his inner faith and newfound mental peace and the act of forgiving his captors unburdens his mind and gives him closure on the war. (Chapter 39)
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