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Essay On The Tree In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

856 Words4 Pages

In the young adult novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda called the police at a high school party while going into freshman year. This unfairly made her instant an outcast and loner. Because of the rape, Melinda lost friends and interest in school and activities. As her art project, Melinda is assigned to draw a tree and she realizes that this project is harder than it seems. When she first draws her tree it has no \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ emotion. It is dark and depressing. This tree symbolises how she is feeling on the inside. In the first and second marking period, the tree symbolizes Melinda being alone and closed off . In the third marking period she begins to acknowledge what has happened to her and changes. At the end of the novel she learns to speak and interact with …show more content…

The tree in the story represents life and growth in Melinda's recovery from being raped at the high school party. The tree represents Melinda's suffering and recovery that she experiencing from the rape. In the beginning of the year, Melinda is assigned to a tree as a yearly art project. She draws a tree that represents the emotional state that she is in. Her drawing represents a lifeless naked tree, with no emotion, and lack of detail. Melinda's inability to draw a tree as life and detail, is comparable to her struggles of opening up and letting people in. After being bullied by a group of girls at the prep rally, her tree reflects on how she was feeling. “For a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning. I try to paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally.” (Anderson 30). The tree symbolizes how depressed she is, and how dead she feels on the inside, but is still alive. Melinda is showing that she is just hanging on, and is very weak but is still in the

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