Survivor

In the excerpt from “Unbroken” written by Laura Hildebrand, Louie showed major resilience, especially compared to Mac and Phil. Louie demonstrated the power of hope, faith and trust.

The men faced extremely life threatening circumstances, all of which Louie kept his hope up. For example, when the men first crashed and ended up in the water, Louie fought to get the raft that was floating away. The raft was too fast for Louie and Phil and Mac lost all hope, Louie began to use his strong problem solving skills and awareness to discover that there was a cord connected to the raft within his reach. Of course Louie grabbed the cord and all of the men got into the raft. If it was not for Louie using his resilience all of the men would have died being exposed to the ocean, instead of being out of the water. Another example of something Louie did that contributed to the men’s survival was use his resources to be able to catch rain water. They had cans that were not catching much water so Louie made a cone type thing to catch water, along with catching it in his mouth and transferring it into cans so that they could have water even after the rain stopped this is also an example of Louie using his problem solving skills.

As for things that Louie said to help him and Phil survive, Louie was not necessarily religious, but as Phil sang hymns Louie began to decide to pray. Although Louie did not really know how to pray he did anyway, he used faith to keep himself alive, which also helped Phil, who did offer an “amen” after Louie’s prayers. This exemplifies resilience in the sense of having an internal locus of control along with being able to ask for help. He did not ask another human for help which may be the main idea of the category, but he did ask the Lord for help. Louie’s resilience was a key part of his, and Phil’s survival.

Louie’s response to their life threatening circumstances were very different from Phil and especially Mac. Phil eventually started to go along with Louie and they ended up surviving from the power of resilience. As for Mac, Mac was in rough physical shape, along with his mental state. Mac did not join the other two men in anything they did, he did not use his resources, pray with Louie, do anything to keep himself sane. Mac may have died from exposure but he also died from lack of hope, mental state makes a big difference although it may seem ridiculous.

Louie shows many of the skills of resilience, such as, being able to ask for help, identifying as a survivor instead of a victim, strong problem solving skills, having an internal locus of control, and awareness. This may show that Louie has strong underlying values and beliefs such as extreme value for life and the belief he can accomplish almost anything. He may not come right out and show these values and beliefs but when put in a critical situation they are very evident.

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