(Hook) Abuse is a overly toxic action that causes many pushbacks in ones life. (Bridge) In Laurie Halse Andersons’s novel Speak, Melinda, the protagonist, experiences abuse and readers see just how much it is displayed in her everyday life. (FS) From as early as the beginning of the novel, readers see Melinda is an outcast. (FS) Traumatized and alone from what happens during the summer, Melinda enters highschool, with a not so good start. (FS) In the end, readers see Melinda change for the better, after seeing her suffer for so long. (Thesis) Readers are shown that abuse can affect its victims through (P1) grades (P2) relationships (P3) and the point of view given on the outside world.
(Topic) Throughout the Speak novel the author gives readers
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(Point) Melindas supposed friends leave her when she is going through so much in her life. (Evidence) Melinda sees, “ a few friends—people [she] used to think were [her] friends—but they look away.”(Anderson 8). (Explanation) That summer night did not only change Melinda it changes the way her friends look at her. They exclude Melinda at school and were obviously not real friends to begin with. (Link)In spite of Melinda not having friends at school, even at home, her parents do not make it any better. (Point) Her relationship with her parents does not make her situation any easier.(Evidence) In ‘Dinner Theater’ Melinda says “Deprived of Victim, Mom and Dad holler at each other. I turn up my music and drown out the noise.” (Anderson 36). (Explanation) Despite the fact that readers dont know how close Melinda and her parents were before, readers can infer that it wasnt the best before the rape. She does not feel as if she can tell her parents what happens to her because of they way they act towards her which says a lot about the way they are. After the rape her grades drop which means her parents are not only disappointed but they are frustrated with her. (Link) Nevertheless, Melinda is going through other thoughts and feelings inside
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.
Throughout the book, Melinda has problems with her family. For example a problem with her family is that her parents don't listen or talk to her. Also her dad just comes home drunk not talking to her. Also Melinda has a lot of problems with her friends like. The problems with here friends is they don’t like each other anymore and the readers don’t know why.
We can all agree that everybody has had or has physcological effects in their high school lives. In the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson the main character Melinda was raped by Andy Evans which resulted in many emotional and physical impacts. As a result of being raped, Melinda encountered psychological effects of being anti-social and self blaming. She also developed self-destructive effects such as her cutting her wrist. After being raped, Melinda became very anti-social.
One of them is how Melinda must deal with the trauma of Andy’s assault. Melinda constantly sees Andy around school and it terrifies her. Just the sight of him is enough to cause a panic and remind her of the night it happened. Melinda is left with excess anxiety, and it causes her to behave coldly towards others. This results in Melinda’s only friend abandoning her because her behavior is too upsetting.
For instance, she allows her feelings of being abandon by Heather to assist her resistance of being taken advantage of. Also, out of concern for her former best friend, Rachel, she tells her about what her boyfriend did at the party. Slowly she begins the process of acceptance and coming forward. The reader will be able to bear witness to the strength she found within herself to overcome the obstacles she faced; not wanting to be used by her peers and not wanting her attacker to strike again, but fearing how people would react to the truth. The novel portrays how the process of coming forward can be excruciating and that it will likely get worse before it gets better.
1 in 6 womenwoman will be or have been raped in the US, . With most victims being 18-30 years old. The book Speak (by Laurie Halse Anderson) is about a girl named Melinda that had something traumatic happen to her at a summer party. Due to her trauma she has a hard time making friends going into high school and with this Melinda is conflicted about her individuality and questions if she can trust any one with being herself . After spring break Melinda begins to care about herself again and tries to better herself and get over her trauma.
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 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
Because Melinda and her family mainly talk like that there is little to no family bonding and Melinda is not getting the love and attention she needs in this rough time in her life. It is not just her parents she is feeling the neglect from. She also wrote to her friends through notes. Melinda has no friends this school year because of what happened over the summer at a party when she called the cops because a senior in high school, Andy Evans, brutally raped her, but everyone in school does not know that. When she finds out that her old friend, Rachel, starts to date Andy, she wants to help her.
In the beginning of Melinda’s story, she has already been invaded with thoughts from the incident, and she is heavily affected physically and psychologically by Andy Evan’s control. This is shown substantially through her outward appearance and attitude in her new school. “I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don’t have anyone to sit with. I am Outcast” (Anderson 4).
She is mentally struggling, and they cannot even tell because of how much they are not home. They do not even hear her out or ask why her grades are so low. They just assume that she is being lazy and not doing her work. This is an example of miscommunication because Melinda feels trapped inside her own mind, and her parents are expecting too much from her with the mental state that she is in at this time. In the play as well as the novel, the parents and the teenager do not communicate well with each other, and this causes the teenagers to feel alone, frustrated, and
She chooses to deny everything that happened from that night and pretend that everything was a dream and nothing really happened. However, she knew she was violated, and the feeling of her body not being her own is a constant reminder that she should speak out about what really happened, “It’s getting harder to talk.. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut scraping away at the inside of my ribs. ”(Anderson) Melinda compares the gnawing truth with a beast and how even though she tries to avoid the truth, the truth is always there, trying to break free from her own silence.
Melinda can not find the words to describe the event of her rape and hence is unable to defend herself against unfair accusations made by classmates and instructors. Finally, Melinda experiences flashbacks and episodes of anxiety, particularly when she faces situations or people that remind her of the event. For instance, Melinda refers to a flashback, “ Mostly I just watch the scary movies inside my eyelids” (50). Melinda refers
(Anderson, 165). In this part of the book melinda is watching an episode of oprah and it's an episode about a girl who's been raped and melinda's subconscious wakes up and makes it seem like oprah is talking to her telling her she was raped, she just started to come to realization that she really was raped at the party and she was getting really overwhelmed and started feeling sick. She already knew she got raped, but she was in doubt and she didn't want it to be true which is why it took so long for her to
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.