What Is The Loss Of Innocence In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

She also struggles with the feeling of hopelessness. In the chapter "Coloring Outside the Lines," Melinda is working on her trees in art class and these feelings, along with others, are shown through her reactions to her work. She says, "I have already ruined six linoleum blocks I can see it in my head: strong old oak tree... But when I try to carve it, it looks like a dead tree... I can 't bring it to life.

One will eventually come across the day where they are able to figure out who they truly are as a person. A discovery like this will lead to new chapters of life and start new beginnings. Although finding one 's identity can be difficult to understand and accept, it is crucial in life to discover oneself. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a teenage girl, who had to overcome and deal with an awful tragedy, takes readers on the long journey she walked before finding meaning and value in who she is as a person. The journey I was taken on while reading the novel had a beneficial effect on myself, expressed significance to the world about a common topic and showed how the main character gradually changed throughout the story.

Melinda needs to confess what happened at Kyle Rodger’s party the only way she finds the courage to speak up. She write a note to Rachel explaining about the night of the party. She doesn’t believe her into the very end of the book. I wonder what made her change her mind ? You should read the book to find

“Schoolteacher’s nephew represents a dismissal by whites of the dehumanizing qualities of slavery”. When Sethe is raped, schoolteacher observed how her body is exploited. The scars on Sethe’s back are so many that they resemble the trunk of a tree with its branches. Sethe bear scars on her back because she was whipped due to her try of escape. Amy Denver, a white girl that helped Sethe when she was running away from Sweet Home, calls the tree a chokecherry tree.

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).

This shows Melinda’s attitude. “"We were never really, really friends, were we? I mean, it 's not like I ever slept over at your house or anything. We like to do different things. I have my modeling, and I like to shop . . . "”

Having this tree helps Janie through many hard times, and gives her something to think about in her times of need. The pear tree serves as a means of characterizing Janie throughout the novel by symbolizing lessons for Janie, Janie’s life, and giving Janie a goal for life. In the story, the pear tree characterizes Janie by being a symbol for her. At the beginning of the story, Janie watches a bee gathering pollen from a blossom on the tree.

Take a look at an apple tree, the tree lives in the perfect world, growing in a stable environment, compared to the struggling world that the Joshua tree undergoes. In the book “The Glass Castle” written by Jeannette Walls, the following quote took my interest and sparked great wisdom. “Mom frowned at me. “You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.

This 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.

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.

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. Laurie Halse Anderson uses literary elements such as imagery, symbolism, and conflict, in order to reveal the protagonist’s emotional growth throughout the the novel.

After Melinda admits to herself that she was raped, Melinda starts to realize that

Melinda cannot say what she is feeling and so those around her cannot understand how she feels. “You don’t understand….” Pg. 28 Melinda is constantly saying how she wants to forget all about the event and not let it affect her high school career.

Dana Gioia’s poem, “Planting a Sequoia” is grievous yet beautiful, sombre story of a man planting a sequoia tree in the commemoration of his perished son. Sequoia trees have always been a symbol of wellness and safety due to their natural ability to withstand decay, the sturdy tree shows its significance to the speaker throughout the poem as a way to encapsulate and continue the short life of his infant. Gioia utilizes the elements of imagery and diction to portray an elegiac tone for the tragic death, yet also a sense of hope for the future of the tree. The poet also uses the theme of life through the unification of man and nature to show the speaker 's emotional state and eventual hopes for the newly planted tree. Lastly, the tree itself becomes a symbol for the deceased son as planting the Sequoia is a way to cope with the loss, showing the juxtaposition between life and death.

Transitioning from childhood to adulthood involves a pivotal moment in one’s life, resulting in a necessary loss of innocence to shape who a person will become. In Atonement by Ian McEwan, the teenage protagonist, Briony Tallis, commits a grave crime that separates two star-crossed lovers and destroys her once innocent childhood. As a teenager, she actively uses her imagination to help with her writing, remaining unaware of adulthood. However, her imagination, combined with her highly demanding and attention seeking personality, convinces her that she is always correct, and as a consequence allow her to falsely accuse a man of rape. The one pivotal moment that Briony experienced may have negatively affected her life and those around her, however, it was a necessity for her to mature and realize her mistakes.