Laurie Halse Anderson Speak Analysis

After going through an intense experience, most people are going to be left in shock. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a girl entering her freshman year in high school named Melinda had called the police at a party she attended after being sexually assaulted by an older student. Throughout the novel Melinda had felt as if she had lost her ability to speak but ends up finding her way through written words to help her regain her ability to speak. After the party where Melinda was sexually assaulted she had felt she lost her ability to speak. She started to write less on the post-it notes written to her parents and started become more distant from everything around her, especially at school. This shows that Melinda was so traumatized by what she experienced it caused her to become silent. Along with that because everyone around gave off the impression that she was disliked, Melinda felt she had no one she felt safe enough around to explain what happened that night. As the school year went on, Melinda

When assigned the word “tree” in her art class, she started to use art to express herself. The first tree was dark and gloomy because to show how she felt inside at the time, the second tree was more of a fake looking tree because of one of her only “friends”, Heather, had started to hang around the “Marthas”, whom were considered fake in Melinda’s mind. When it came to her last drawing, the tree become more real and gave off a stronger feel to it, this was because she had started talking to a girl named Ivy and for the first time since the night of the party that started it all she said something to her ex-friend, Rachel, giving her a lot of confidence. Drawing the trees really helped Melinda in ways not even she noticed. It helped her express herself without forcing her to do anything out of her comfort zone, like