"Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned1 to the fires of your furnace?"

2. Infantry Veteran:  Members of the infantry are ground troops that engage with the enemy in close-range combat.

"I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart."

3. Coarsely: Not elegant or delicate in appearance.

"It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely."

4.  Mystified: make obscure or mysterious.

"I read in the newspaper that your community is mystified by the outcry from all over the country about what you have done."

5. Denounced: publicly declare to be wrong or evil.

"If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the education of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books –books you hadn’t even read."

2. The middle of the letter he provides details like the fact that he is a former Combat veteran and discusses how he is not exploiting the burning of his books to make money. Instead he explains that he is a  hard worker who wrote those novels to convey values and issues normal American families face.

3. The end of the letter he asks the school board members to be mature adults and allow students to access a variety of ideas in order.

Symbolism: "After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes – but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that.

I read in the newspaper that your community is mystified by the outcry from all over the country about what you have done. Well, you have discovered that Drake is a part of American civilization, and your fellow Americans can’t stand it that you have behaved in such an uncivilized way. Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own." - paragraphs 7-8

Alliteration: "Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real." - paragraph 10

Imagery: "I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school." - paragraph 1