What Is Louis Zamperini's Failure

The writer Thomas Wolfe once said, “If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use to the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.” In the biography Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini definitely used his skills to the fullest, Knowing his capabilities, Louie pushed himself to do his best no matter the circumstances, he was an extremely determined man. For instance, after being imprisoned for quite some time, Louie was forced to race against a Japanese civilian. Knowing that all of the officials were setting him up to fail just so they could humiliate him, made Louie determined to win. Louie knew he had the capabilities to come out on top, and he wanted so badly
Hillenbrand started off the book by talking about how Louie behaved completely different as a kid then what most people would expect a future Olympic athlete to act like. Hillenbrand states, “Louie stole a neighbor’s coffee percolator tube, set up a sniper’s nest in a tree, crammed pepper-tree beme into his mouth, spat them through the tube, and sent the neighborhood girls running”(7). Obviously a mischievous kid,not the hard working diligent boy who had a goal he wanted to reach. After a long time of getting into trouble and having police men constantly looking after him, Louie realized what he had become was not what he could be, and in the biography the author says just that: “The person