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Speak by laurie anderson essay
Speak by laurie anderson essay
Speak by laurie anderson essay
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Speak by laurie anderson essay
Speak by laurie anderson essay
Speak by laurie anderson essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Melinda’s grades begin to drop and she starts to self harm by biting her lips until they bleed. When Heather notices that Melinda is depressed, she breaks her friendship with her instead of getting Melinda help. Her parents and guidance counselors notice her sudden decline, but think it’s just a ploy for attention. Months later, Melinda finally admits to herself that she was raped by Andy Evans. She starts going to class and reuniting with her friends.
In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, Speak, Melinda is a dynamic character whose behaviors, thoughts, and words change and reflect the theme of the novel, not to keep ones emotions bottled up. First, Melinda acts in a shy and quiet manner because she had got her friends into trouble when she called the cops at the party. However when Melinda begins to make her own choicesfor herself and not let her emotions get to her, she realizes she will not let other people make her own descions. This is evident when Anderson writes “I mean no I won`t help you” (Anderson 179). This shows how Melinda will not be walked on by her peers.
Melinda’s character develops tremendously over the course of the book. In the beginning of the book, she says, “ 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 an outcast” (Anderson, 4). At the start, Melinda had lost all of her friends after she busted a party last summer, but nobody knows that a senior boy at the party raped her.
Over the course of Speak, Melinda Sordino develops from the outcast a popular girl with lots of people who have her back. At first, Melinda Sordino was a quiet outcast. This happened because Melinda didn’t speak after she called the cops at a party after she was raped. The party got shut down and everyone blamed Melinda, not knowing what happened on her side of the story. Consequently, she told no one, knowing that she had not come to terms of what happened and did not want to relive the memory yet.
A random students taps Melinda on the shoulder and asks if she’s the one who called the cops at the party hosted by Kyle Rodger. She nods people were making her feel guilty and horrible for what she did. The reason why she called the cops still remains a mystery but this explains why Melinda is isolated, and why Rachel stopped being friends with Melinda. whatever happened at the party traumatized her and haunts Melinda everyday.
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
Melinda pushing those around her away is a direct result of her not acknowledging interpersonal conflicts due to the fact it’s easier for her to lose relationships than speak out. One day, while Melinda is eating lunch
" Speak also states on page 161 " I am a deer in headlights of a tractor, is he going to hurt me again? He couldn't in school... why am I so afraid. " These examples from the text show all the problems Melinda had, for instance what Andy did to her,
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.
Melinda doesn’t speak because of what happened at the party and she doesn’t think anyone will believe her. Or if they do believe her then Andy would do something to her or tell people that she was lying. Andy is popular so the students would think that Melinda had just said that to receive attention and make people forget what she had done at the party. The truth was that she was raped at the party and when she called the police, all of her friends were angry at her for getting them into trouble. They don’t understand what had actually happened.
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).
Not even Melinda’s “best friends” took the time to listen to the actual story. Melinda’s only response to this horrible incident is silence. This is only the start of Melinda Sordino's story. There is much more pain and hardship that will come throughout the novel
How does Melinda’s art project in the novel Speak enable her to survive throughout the year? There are many parts in the novel that contribute to Melinda’s growth in art class. For instance, art class teaches Melinda how to survive by Melinda expressing her emotions and letting them out on a sculpture; in addition, she starts liking art class and being comfortable with the class. Melinda is a girl in school who is being constantly bullied by her ‘used to be’ friends and other kids in school. They are all bullying her because she supposedly called the cops at a summer party; however, do they know why she called the cops?
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.
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.