Zamperini from unbroken would probably not agree with Nietzsche’s assessment of God and Christian morality, but the approach that Zamperini took to survive his experience on the life raft and as a POW closely resembles Nietzsche’s concepts of “ubermensch” and “will to power.”

Hillenbrand, the author of unbroken, vividly describes the disaster that Zamperini and the surviving members of his crew find themselves in following the crash in their shoddy, barely functioning bomber. After several planes pass over their raft, they realize that they are presumed dead and must ensure survival for themselves. Under such difficult circumstances, one of his former crew members begins to lose hope and crack under pressure. Mac begins to isolate himself and draw inside his mind, losing hope for the future. Zamperini and Phil, however, perservere and never lose hope. Their attitudes resemble Schopenhauer’s concept of the will to live, but it goes beyond the will to live, and more closely resembles the will to power. Part of Zamperini’s hope comes from his desire to reclaim his former glory as an international track star. (insert evidence here). By using his hopes of winning the mile at the 44 Olympics – and all the fame, money, and power that it would bring – as motivation, he is exemplifying the “will to power that Nietzsche talked about. This will to power saved him in one of the most hopeless moments of his life.

As a child, Zamperini is described by Hillenbrand as unruly in the extreme and sometimes criminal. He would routinely steal, cause trouble, and beat his peers at school. As a very young boy, he would routinely get picked on and beat up, but he would never show a reaction to his bullies, and eventually fought off his bullies. This defiance and refusal to show the pain he was experiencing would reflect his experience as a POW in Japan. The most notorious of his guards, the bird was an officer who singled out Zamperini and tried to break him. He not only physically tortured him, but he psychologically tortured him by being unpredictable in the extreme, so that Zamperini lived in constant fear of abuse. Part of the reason why the bird singled him out is his subtle defiance and refusal to bend his will to those in authority who sought to harm him. In one instance, the bird forced him to hold up a giant wooden beam over his head. He told a guard to beat him if he dropped it. Being a malnourished POW made the task far more difficult than it would have been otherwise. Zamperini hoisted the beam above his head and struggled to hold it there as the bird watched on in pleasure. Zamperini’s body began to give out but his mind did not. He physically had no power over to resist that physical attacks of the bird and his henchmen, but mentally, he vowed to never let them win. Zamperini ended up holding that log above his head for 34 minutes, until the bird, realizing he would never give up, became enraged and began beating him. The rejection of a hostile authority and the determination to never let his will be broken shows how Zamperini exemplified the “Ubermensch” that Nietzsche talked about.