Louie shows us how low a human can be put and how high he or she can climb back up to where he or she was. “He felt his consciousness slipping, his mind losing adhesion, until all he knew was a single thought: He can not break me. Across the compound, the Bird had stopped laughing.” (Hillenbrand pg.302). In this situation, Louie is being forced to hold a large wooden beam above his head under the condition that if he drops it, he will be beaten mercilessly. He redeems himself from the very low standard that was put on him by the Bird and he “ had held the beam aloft for thirty-seven minutes” (Hillenbrand pg.302). He showed us that a human can continually redeem himself from being put at a very low point.
The capacity for personal redemption is innate in all humans. In all humans there is a survival mechanism. Since all humans have the same potential, and Louie redeemed himself from the loss of dignity constantly, we can conclude that all humans could do what Louie did. In perilous situations, when the dignity and control of a person is threatened by an outside entity, the mind fights for survival and in Louie’s case, obtains redemption from dehumanization. To lose one’s dignity is to lose one’s humanity, and to come back from that is redemption, which is to bring one’s self back to