At this point in the novel, the only thing revealed about what happened was that she had called the cops on a high school party during summer, leaving her friends mad at her. Melinda went through the first few classes and lunch on her terrible first day, finding them all completely miserable.
I recently read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The main character Melinda Sordino went through a lot during her summer. Her freshman year isn't off to a good start. During the summer she called the cops at a party, no one knew why she kept it a secret, but she soon tells of what really happened. She changed a lot throughout the story from being depressed, staying home and hiding in a closet at school, to becoming open and telling her secret of what happened to her.
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
Because Melinda called the police after the rape, the party got stopped, and Melinda became an outcast from there on out. Melinda struggles with making new friends at school because she is a part of the group of outcasts within the school. Throughout the book, the reader is shown
Melinda feels disturbed by the sexuality of her high school peers, really because she is a victim of sexual violence and yet, she always blamed herself. She feels like if she was doing what she was supposed to, the whole "Rape" thing wouldnt have never happened so she blames herself. She also blames herself because she does not feel ready for this next phase of life. "It happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting.
Melinda avoids talking about her assault as she is struggling with feelings of guilt, shame and fear, fear of being judged or not believed if she tells someone about what happened to her. Melinda is haunted by the memory of her rape which contributes to her decision to keep her assault a secret. Therefore,with Melindas
Melinda is an outstanding example of a sexual assault victim afraid to speak up. Melinda passes out from
She didn’t have anyone to vent to or make her feel more important. She had to suffer through her life taunting experience alone. With no friends to help her through this tough time she felt it hard to persevere and thus found herself slip into depression. Little did Melinda know that all she had to do was fight through and eventually when she moved onto sophomore year she will finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Melinda is not the only one who went through hardships, so did Reavun in The Chosen.
She kept her secret so long that she now views it as a second nature to be quiet. Resentment and hate are two very strong words usually not used to describe friends. Her relationship with Heather turns sour when Heather decides that the depressed girl with a bad reputation cannot be her friend. Melinda cannot even start over with new friends. Without coming clean and freeing her “reputation” she is unable to change.
Speak, the story of Melinda Sordino, the girl without a voice. In speak the main protagonist, Melinda, has to go through high school with almost everyone in her school hating her because of a misunderstanding, she called the police on a summer party because she was sexually assaulted but never had the courage to say anything. Throughout the book the writer, Laurie Anderson uses trees to symbolize changes in Melinda’s life like (insert thing here), how Melinda needs to remove the “dead branches” from her life so she can move on and grow from her experiences, and how Melinda was finally able to “cut the dead branches” from her life and learn to speak up for herself. A good example of Melinda’s transformation is shown in this next quote. “He’s
At the end of the story she finally found her voice and was able to stand up for herself. In the beginning, Melinda didn't talk to anyone, barely even to her parents. She says, “I have tried so hard to forget every second of that stupid party and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do. I can't tell them what really happened” (Anderson, 28).
After Melinda admits to herself that she was raped, Melinda starts to realize that
It isn’t perfect and that makes it just right.” As seen in the text, Melinda finally realizes that she can/has grown. Its not her fault she was raped, it doesn't define her, but it can help shape her. She states that she isn't perfect, similar to her homely sketch, but that's OK; nobody is perfect. Melinda also learns how to reassure herself and how to cope with her trauma, saying “It wasn’t my fault.
For instance, she tells rachel about what happened at the party. Once Melinda learns that Andy and Rachel are attending prom together, she needed to tell Rachel about what Andy did. “I was stupid and drunk and I didn’t know what was happening and then he hurt-I scribbled that out-raped me” (183). Melinda finally telling someone about what happened is a perfect example of her recovery. At the beginning of the novel, she could not even talk to her friends.
Her friends were worried so, they left school early to check on her. She locked herself in her room and kept looking at the nasty messages the girls kept sending her. She hated her life even more than she did before. She didn’t want to exist. Her friends wanted her to forget everything and ignore them.
