Compare And Contrast Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

The Need for Love Feeling loved compared to being loved are two totally different concepts that people have trouble telling the difference between. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a fiction novel where the main character, Melinda, faces different problems and feelings about how the different people in her life love her throughout her freshman year of high school. Her parents are no help throughout all of this. Even though they may love Melinda, she certainly does not feel as if they do. Anderson uses symbolism in Speak to exhibit the importance of feeling loved. Feeling loved is expressed through the use of notes to speak to people in Melinda’s life. This is shown as symbolism because Melinda feels she can not talk to anyone face to face. Melinda writes to her parents instead of talking to them because she knows they will not listen to her and she feels that this is the most effective way. Melinda says, “We

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. She was too afraid to tell her in person so she wrote her an anonymous note. Melinda says that “I wrote her a note, a left-handed note, so she wouldn’t know it’s from me”