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Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson: Character Analysis

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In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, the main character Melinda is starting her first year of high school in Syracuse, NY. The hardships that follow from the party over the summer are leading Melinda to being depressed, which has made not only made her grades unacceptable, but has resulted in Melinda losing her friends. In the beginning of Melinda’s high school career she was not talking to anyone. She has no friends after ruining the party, she wants to explain what had happened but can not even talk to them. She wants her friends back but she will not explain to them what happened. Melinda finds a new girl in school and becomes friends with her, but not for long. “Look, you can’t eat lunch with me anymore” (Anderson 107). Heather has …show more content…

It made Melinda realize that being quiet, blowing off school and being antisocial is affecting her life in a big way. It is affecting her by making her lose her only friend, and feeling more isolated from everyone than she already is. Along with the troubles at school, Melinda is starting to feel very depressed, she goes home and takes action. One night she took a paper clip and cut her wrist. She is starting to inflict self harm. She wants help from a friend or family member, but they just are not there to help her. “I open a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist” (Anderson 87). She wants the attention. She wants the help and tell someone about everything that is going on. The depression started to make her inflict self harm. She decides to cut her left wrist with a paperclip and starts to think about suicide. Her mom notices the cuts and does not bother to care and blows it off as if she does not care to notice what is going on. This adds to the feelings Melinda is having. Her family will not listen and notice what is going on. She feels alone in school and now at home with no one to talk to. The impact the depression had on Melinda affected her a lot. She had lost all of her friends because of the party over the

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