Robert Leckie is the protagonist and author of the book “Helmet for My Pillow — From Parris Island. ” He is a World War II veteran and describes what it is like in the United States Marine Corps and how he endures the pain and devastating days of the horrors of World War II against the Japanese. The story begins with him in boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina. The story then leads to the end of his basic training, which challenges him in the Pacific.
During his hard journey, he uses many literary devices to get the reader interested and make his story sound as lively as possible; giving the book a vivid tone, a dramatic mood, and deep imageries, this book is a book that will stick in your mind for a while. A vivid tone is mandatory for a war book. Leckie does an amazing job at this by letting the readers know everything that’s going on by his tone. It lets the readers interpret the novel in a way Leckie viewed war as a marine. In the end when they reach the open sea, you can really feel the connection between Runner and Leckie when he says, “So long, boys. This is because the tone Leckie has used throughout the book built it up to this moment. His use of tone in this quote describes the result of facing many severe challenges. The mood in this book is very dramatic. Every chapter is a buildup for the next one, making you want to keep reading on. The mood from his personal life in the Marines and the struggles in the war shows of a lot of emotion which gives the readers some sort of sympathy for Leckie. For example when Leckie arrives at Peleliu, he begins to show his hatred for Sergeant McCasustic. Now grief was mingled with humiliation and indignation… I began to hate Sergeant McCaustic… unforgiving, unforgetting, unrepentant hatred. ” He creates a dark mood using an assonance, the repetition of the prefix un-. Leckie’s deep imagery describes everything; every detail, every little thing that happened, and the littlest things are what you remember when you put this book down. A perfect example of this is when he kills a Japanese soldier, “When I had shot the Japanese fleeing down the river bank, something silver had flashed when the first one fell.
I imagined it to be the sun’s reflection off an officer’s insignia. If he had been an officer, he must have been armed with a saber. This most precious prize of all the war I was determined to get. ” In this short paragraph, his use of imagery is just so detailed you can picture what happened exactly in your head. From the sun’s reflection to the shining of the saber, everything is explained to you in a detailed way. In conclusion, all Robert Leckie has to do is get a movie deal. It shouldn’t be too hard, since he already has the vivid tone, dramatic mood, and deep imagery.
