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Character Analysis Of Melinda Sordino In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

517 Words3 Pages
Melinda Sordino has a difficult life. She has been casted out of her social group, is failing her classes, and is ignored at home. In the novel SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda is greatly impacted by her relationships with the people in her life. Even though Melinda isn’t communicative, the people in her life influence her through their actions and words. Her art teacher, her pseudo-friend, and lab partner all affect her in different ways. One of the people in Melinda’s life that impacts her greatly is her art teacher Mr. Freeman. He is Melinda’s favorite teacher. Melinda states, “He painted the faces of school board members peering out of the windows of the buildings, then he put bars on the windows and turned the building into a prison”(62).
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Throughout the course of the book Speak, she goes through ups and downs, but in the end she has gained enough confidence to stand up against the boy who raped her. Her art teacher and her are talking “Mr. Freeman: You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you? Me: Let me tell you about it” (Anderson, 198). The book ends with Melinda feeling

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Imagine being through a traumatic event and didn’t know how to tell someone, or maybe not had anyone to talk to about how you were feeling? That's how Melinda Sordino felt as the main character in the book Speak by Halse Anderson. Melinda was going through the hells of highschool alone after being raped at a party, and ditched by all of her friends who she thought cared about her. She is bullied, harassed, picked on, and failing all of her classes. Except for art class where she finds the only place that she feels safe anymore.

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To summarize, in the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, she shows Melinda as a helpless person at the beginning of the school year. By the end Mr.Freeman helped her find her voice and one of her old friends. She also stands up for herself against the guy who hurts her. Her let go friend is someone who thought she could win her back but she could not be Melinda 's friend after what

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It was the only class she was able to get an A in which showed to prove that the class was doing her good. With Mr.Freeman, he helped her not only see the beauty in art, but to see how life corporates with it. At first, Melinda egt a topic drawn out of a (bowl?) and has to work with it all year long to make it portray more than just artwork. He wanted every student to show expression and emotion in their produced works involving their topic. With this all year long project, Melinda slowly was able to learn her own colors as well as the people around her too.

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Heather from speak is not guilty of being a bad friend. This is evident when Heather is the only other person that is willing to accept Melinda and listen to what Melinda has to say. Heather sets a plan “[Heather] wants us to join five clubs, one for every day of the week” (Anderson 22). This represents friendly behaviour, as Heather is assisting Melinda in making new friends, while also boosting her own social rank.

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In this current generation depression is becoming more and more prevalent in impressionable teenagers. This issue of depression is also an important theme in the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson in which the main character Melinda tries to overcome after a traumatic summer party. Throughout the novel there are many displays and signs of Melinda's depression. Of these signs the three most noticeable include her low self-esteem which is seen in every one of her decisions, habits of isolation/social withdrawal at school and even at home, and self harm. She unveils these signs of depression with every test and challenge she faces.

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Have you ever felt like you were trapped in a secret that you couldn’t find the power to share it with anyone? Author, Laurie Halse Anderson wrote her young-adult novel Speak, to show the what its like to face something like that. What’s her secret you might ask? Melinda a ninth grade student about to enter high school was a victim to a sexual assult by one of her peers that past summer at a party. Many teens face this and even though it seems impossible to conquer, Anderson, using humor, and complex symbolism which brings to light on how a real life issue evolved into a new way.

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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.

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Melinda is isolated from everybody at school, this affected her ability to speak openly about her pain with the strong animosity held upon her. At a pep rally, Melinda is publicly humiliated about the party by a group of students sitting behind her. “‘You’re Melinda Sordino?’ I turn around. She blows a black bubble and sucks it back into her mouth.

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In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda gives a really good example of character development throughout the story. Melinda just starts her freshman year at high school. Over the summer her and her friends went to a party and Melinda gets raped by a boy named Andy Evans and ends up calling the police, she didn't tell anyone why she called the police, causing her friends and everyone at the party to reject her. Melinda’s only friend is a new girl named heather. Melinda gets depressed and starts expressing her pain through stuff like biting her lips and her nails, and not talking.

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Speak Essay Books can have a massive impact on one’s life. The novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book about a girl named Melinda. Throughout the book, it’s made obvious that Melinda has major issues caused by trauma. This is made obvious through the fact that she has no friends, she’s extremely insecure, and the negativity in her head is made clear through the effect it has on her body. Towards the end of the book, it’s found out that Melinda’s issues come from when she was raped at a party by a boy named Andy Evans.

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After melinda has gone off to school she can’t talk to teachers because melinda can’t take them seriously. When melinda has gone off to school she can’t take the teachers seriously and can’t talk to them. “Mr. Neck storms into the class, like a bull chasing thirty-three red flags. We slide into our seats. Mr. Neck is going to explode when the students are not in the class or in their seats.

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In the book “Speak” Laurie Halse Anderson writes about a young teen, Melinda Sordino, an outsider and a despised person who is entering high school. Melinda shutdown an end-of-summer party by calling the police, she was heavily intoxicated and she got raped. She has a troublesome time fitting in and finding her way through high school, while she is still hoping to make it out alive. Melinda’s ex-best friend Rachel and her other ex-friends will not talk or be friends with her anymore because after what she did. Melinda is concealing her secret about being raped from Rachel, her ex-friends, and her parents.

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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.

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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.

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