The novel “Speak”, written by Laurie Halse Anderson first published in the year 1999, deals with Melinda, an “outcast” (p. 4), who experiences her first year of high school while simultaneously trying to cope with the aftermath of sexual abuse during a party, which consists mainly of her not being able to speak. Since we are all aware of the fact that Melinda’s traumatic event led to a certain degree of dehumanization for her, the following words intend to focus on and elaborate Melinda’s struggle in school; how she views her teachers, her marks, her periods and to some degree also her peers and classmates. Starting right at the beginning Melinda enters her high school life with a healthy amount of prejudice. Probably having heard or
People can learn to grow. People don’t stay the same for all of their life. They experience life to grow and change with it. In the book Speak the character Melinda was sexually assaulted and she had to learn how to grow and accept that it wasn't her fault. The people in her life also grew and changed for the better when they knew the real reason she called the cops on the party.
In the novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson repeats the idea of feeling companionless and shielding oneself from harm. Throughout the text, Melinda, the main character feels like everyone is against her and she tries to put a stop to being harmed again. Even at times when she should be happier, such as when she is with friends, she doesn’t speak much and is withdrawn from everyone. On her first day of high school, at the very beginning of the text, Melinda compares high school to the jungle by calling herself “ a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special.” (Halse Anderson 5)
She lost her identity and became cynical of other people. After her old friends ditched her, she lost a major part of herself. Then, although she did not consider Heather a “true friend”, she was desperate to keep her when Heather wanted to cut the ties of friendship. Going through high school is hard enough, but especially difficult when teenagers have no one there to go through it with. Also, Melinda’s appearance changes drastically over the summer.
Depression isn’t typically something that is capable of being physically seen. Those who have it might show signs, but it requires a lot for someone to look into them, and discover what that person is going through. In the novel Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson, symbolism is used to develop an unspoken theme of depression. This is done so through the janitor’s closet, the turkey sculpture, and the constant mentioning of trees. Depression can cause people to alienate themselves and their thoughts from others.
This causes her to be unable to speak as normal and express herself only through self physical acts of hurting herself. However, through her pain, she begins to grow from a victim to a survivor and understands that the only way to go against evil is to speak out against it. Melinda in Speak is a high school freshman who is raped by Andy Evans who is a senior in high school. Due to him raping her she loses her ability to speak normally and say what she feels and how she feels. Melinda gains her confidence to speak in public freely again by the end of the story.
The Introvert’s Bible: Quiet by Susan Cain Susan Cain’s Quiet opens on a familiar scene: Rosa Parks’s refusal to relinquish her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama public bus. Most descriptions of this tide-changing event stop there, but Cain goes deeper into the personality of the late civil-rights advocate, and reveals something unexpected: Rosa Parks was an introvert. Parks is not the only introvert to have swayed the course of history; throughout the book, Cain discusses example after example of individuals with “quiet power”.
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).
Extroverts can be some of the best people you meet. They have plenty to offer and thrive at the attention of others. However, being introverted can be just as great. In a society where being extroverted is the ideal, it can be very difficult to be an introvert. Susan Cain argues in her Ted Talk, “The Power of Introverts”, that introverts can share many brilliant ideas with the world and should be encouraged and celebrated for who they are.
All of her friends turned their back on Melinda, made fun of her, made her life a living hell. Her parent did not notice that her friends had turned their back on her until late into the school year and it is almost over. Her parents did not do their job in taking care of their baby girl because they were tired from work and did not have a healthy relationship themself. Melinda got stuck in a cycle because of what Andy did to her. She was battling depression basically alone, she had one girl who talked to her out of everybody in her school willingly Heather.
The 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.
Melinda, in a lot of ways, starts out like that it the book. She becomes a shell of herself from before the party happened and because no one else was there, she is lonely and doesn't have anybody to go to and to make matters even worse, she’s covered by the reputation that she has formed. In the book, Laurie Halse Anderson uses symbolism to convey exactly what Melinda can't say. In the beginning of the book, Melinda starts high school carrying her emotional wounds with her after something happens mysterious to her at a party during the summer.
In Judith Butler’s essay,” Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy,” she attempts to clarify what is considered human and what defines a human, and how it applies to the different gender roles and human rights. The difficulty that this essay presents, however, is its ambiguity – the fact that she fails to clearly identify what a human is and sort of challenges the readers to look within themselves to search for their own interpretation of what they believe gives them their own moral rights and human integrity. Human integrity is a word that can easily be defined when searched for in any dictionary database. “LawCookies.com” defines it as, “the human right to live without being physically harmed or harassed by others. No one can touch,
“Of course I want to be a model. I want to paint my eyelids gold. I saw on a magazine cover and it looked amazing- turned the model into a sexy alien that everyone looked at, but no one dared to touch. ” -Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak In Laurie Halse Anderson’s YA novel Speak, Melinda Sordino, a freshman who struggled throughout her freshmen year of school, was sexually assaulted at a party prior to the beginning of the school year.
Speak Journal Response This journal is in response to the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. As a coming-of-age contemporary novel, Speak discusses many sensitive issues that are still prominent even today. In this story, we explore the life of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old girl who is beginning high school right after experiencing an utterly traumatic event: rape. Melinda is left friendless, with no one to help and support her after what happened.
