Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak
Speak, a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a memorable story about a girl who overcomes a horrific experience, rape, and with it, injustice. Melinda, the main protagonist, has an emotional journey, and with the help of her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, survives through this excursion. As Mr. Freeman says, “‘Welcome to the journey’” (12). Mr. Freeman assists Melinda, by constantly questioning her emotional being, turning an art project into a pool of her feelings, and forcing Melinda to see the light in her heart. With Mr. Freeman lifting her emotional baggage, Melinda can finally be free and with that, experience happiness once again. Melinda was in a blur all throughout the school year, because of the incident during the summer, but …show more content…
Freeman’s constant “additood.” Melinda crafted herself into a new person while sculpting her tree over the school year. “I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been getting hit by lightning. I try to paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally. Mr. Freeman doesn’t say a word to me about them. He just raises his eyebrows. One picture is so dark you can barely see the tree” (30). In the beginning of the book, her tree was struck by lightning, like how her self-worth was struck down by IT. IT, being Andy Evans, was the guy who traumatized her and broke her spirit by raping her. Melinda also creates a turkey-bone structure, and she receives a strange reaction, “He doesn’t say anything and I’m afraid he’s pissed that I took out the palm tree. Ivy tries again. ‘It’s scary,’ she says” (64). Mr. Freeman also makes an unexpected comment, “‘This has meaning. Pain’” (65). As the story progresses her tree evolves into a weeping willow, “I sketch a willow drooping into the water. I won’t show Mr. Freeman. This one is for my closet” (147). The weeping willow symbolizes her tears slipping into a pool as she slowly accepts her past. Melinda’s closet is her small hideaway that she would often find herself when she was feeling overwhelmed or wanted peace. By the end of the story, she has a full grown, healthy and strong tree. “The bark is rough… the crown reaches for the sun, tall and healthy. The new growth is the best part” (196). The tree represents her finally coming to terms with her emotions, and how she realized that she is strong and has scars that can be outgrown as
Symbolism In Jeanette's 'Glass Castle'
445 Words | 2 PagesIn contrast with the tree; the walls family were always beaten down due to poverty, spun in different directions by the wind; as in the millions of miles they move about through the country but they also have strong roots as well. Rose; Jeanette’s mother shows a deep interest and fascination over the tree. She loves to study and make portraits about it. In Rose’s perspective the tree is her view about her family; deep underneath their dysfunctional roots of trial and hardships they face; there is a strong bond of love and compassion that they have together as a
Snapping Beans By Lisa Parker Summary
184 Words | 1 PagesThe leaf is symbolic of the girl in this poem. As the leaf breaks off the limb of the tree and blows into the wind, the girl is breaking away from her roots in which she was raised and comes from. At college, she is changing herself to fit in with her new “friends.” She is afraid
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Analysis
1012 Words | 5 PagesThat was the kind of tree it was. It was like poor people.” It grows from sour ground out of the sewer. It only grows in the poorest of neighborhoods and it grows no matter how poor the circumstances are. It symbolizes hard-work, perseverance, the tenacity and the strength of the poor inhabitants of the neighborhood, who survive with little food or money.
Examples Of Character Development In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
755 Words | 4 PagesIn the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda gives a really good example of character development throughout the story. Melinda just starts her freshman year at high school. Over the summer her and her friends went to a party and Melinda gets raped by a boy named Andy Evans and ends up calling the police, she didn't tell anyone why she called the police, causing her friends and everyone at the party to reject her. Melinda’s only friend is a new girl named heather. Melinda gets depressed and starts expressing her pain through stuff like biting her lips and her nails, and not talking.
Symbolism In Laurie Halse Anderson's 'Speak'
805 Words | 4 PagesShe at first thinks the task of drawing a tree is easy, but she soon realizes it is harder than it seems. Melinda can easily picture a tree in her mind, but she can not draw it. This relates to Melinda before and after she was raped by Andy Evans. Before the rape, Melinda is represented by the tree when she says, “I can see it in my head: a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun”(78). Melinda was completely fine before the rape occurred, and she was happy with herself and her surroundings.
Growth And Growth In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
721 Words | 3 PagesMelinda picks the word “tree.” Annoyed, she goes to pick a new word, but is stopped by her art teacher. Melinda struggles with her project, unable to make her trees look alive and un-child like. “I can see it in my head: a strong oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun…. I can’t bring it to
Melinda's Growth In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
844 Words | 4 PagesDuring the time that Melinda is working on her artwork she has been talking to old friends trying to fix her relationships. “My last tree looked like it had died from some fungal infection - not the effect I wanted at all. ”(92). Melinda is already starting to grow in many ways, in her artwork, and her personal life. Her artwork is improving and she is learning to make her tree have meaning behind it.
The Glass Castle Joshua Tree Quotes
647 Words | 3 Pages”(Walls 38). In this quote, Mary Walls indicates to Jeannette to stop thinking about preventing the tree to grow ordinary and un-special; she describes that it struggles for a reason and that is to give it its beauty. This quote metaphorically represents how the hidden, unique beauty that the Joshua tree acquires after it goes through difficult environmental circumstances makes it exotic, and stand out from any other tree.
Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson Analysis
734 Words | 3 PagesThe novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about a girl named Melinda, who shows signs of depression throughout the story. She has no friends and is hated by people she doesn’t even know. This is because she called the cops at a party, where she was raped. Anderson includes literary elements to show how Melinda is depressed. Throughout the novel, she uses many different literary elements to show Melinda’s conflict.
Figurative Language In 'The Black Walnut Tree'
1748 Words | 7 PagesAt its core, “The Black Walnut Tree” is a conflict between the sentimental and what practically needs to be done. Throughout the poem, the author utilizes a very matter-of-fact and almost dismissive tone as the daughter and her mother debate whether or not to sell the tree and finish paying off a loan that they owe. As the poem progresses, this matter-of-fact tone transitions into figurative language as the black walnut tree takes on a more symbolic view. Mary Oliver shows in “The Black Walnut Tree” that the tree symbolizes the family’s heritage and all that their father has sought to accomplish, and, while the mortgage weighs down the family, cutting down and selling the tree would, in a sense, betray the family and what it stands for. Written in free verse, “The Black Walnut Tree” takes a straight forward and casual approach to the topic and is most apparent
Essay On Symbolism In The Book Speak
1197 Words | 5 PagesIn the chapter The Opposite of Inspiration is… Expiration?, Melinda tells us that “[f]or a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit of lightning. I try to paint them so they are nearly dead, but not
Discussion Questions On Speak By Laurie Anderson
516 Words | 3 PagesKayley Flores English pre ap- 1st period Part 1- précis Speak by Laurie Anderson is a young adult fiction book that takes place freshman year at school in New York. The novel is circled around Melinda Sordino, the protagonist, and Andy Evans, the antagonist. The conflict happens because Melinda called the cops at a summer party. She struggles to make friends and speak up about what really happened that night during the school year. Summer is getting closer, so Melinda decides to get her stuff out of the janitor’s closet where then she is confronted by Andy.
Phases In The Life Of Melinda In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
1119 Words | 5 PagesWhat she probably does not realize about the tree is that it represents herself, and the lightning represents either Andy Evans, the boy who raped her, or the hurting that she is going through. When the lightning hits the tree, a branch snaps, and that symbolizes how the rape had hurt her enough to where it has debilitated her. Once she starts to see her own emotions in her artwork she realizes how much she is hurting internally, and that she wants to tell someone about it, but Melinda does not know who she can trust
Pan's Labyrinth Essay
975 Words | 4 PagesThis emphasises the enormity of the task Ofelia is about to embark upon and also her vulnerability as the tree’s dominating presence fills the frame. The fig tree itself is symbolic in its representation. Firstly, the entrance of the tree resembles that of a female’s ovaries, with its curved branches replicating the fallopian tubes. Moreover, the tree’s sickened state mirrors Ofelia’s pregnant mother’s own fragile condition.
Analysis Of Planting A Sequoia By Dana Gioia
1100 Words | 5 PagesThe agony the writer is feeling about his son 's death, as well as the hint of optimism through planting the tree is powerfully depicted through the devices of diction and imagery throughout the poem. In the first stanza the speaker describes the setting when planting the Sequoia; “Rain blacked the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific, / And the sky above us stayed the dull gray.” The speaker uses a lexicon of words such as “blackened”, “cold” and “dull gray” which all introduce a harsh and sorrowful tone to the poem. Pathetic fallacy is also used through the imagery of nature;
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