Unspoken is a book written by Luke Allnutt. The book is based around the story of his dad dying of a terminal illness, brain cancer. The tumor Luke’s dad developed was traced back to an immense amount of radiation he experienced when he was a child. The original round of radiation was helping cure the cancer that caused him to lose his sight, the very thing that cured him as a child will kill him later in his life. Upon the realization that the events you read about or watch an television was happening in Luke’s life affected him greatly.
“If he were able to, he would have razed the entire police station and eliminated all their families” (Ha 302). There are moments in life where anger and acts of sabotage seem inevitable. Sometimes these moments lead to a type of uncontrollable anger that can blind an individual from what is right or wrong. In “Saboteur” by Ha Jin, readers witness the development of a tainted character as all the beliefs and patience of a man gets stomped on. Ha Jin expresses this incredibly well through the excellent use of theme, symbols, and characters.
The memoir can be relatable to young adults, as young adults face many challenges growing up. Young adults face a plethora of issues and to know that they’re not alone , and somebody else faced the same problems or even worse problems ,may help the youth find this memoir relatable. The entire memoir is about Jeannette struggling of her irrational family. Jeanette family never stayed in one place and when they did the conditions were poor. Jeannette mentioned “Instead of beds, we kids each slept on a cardboard box, like the ones refrigerator get delivered in”.
Did you know that only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported? Melinda was one of the 690 people that didn’t report her sexual assault. Speak was about this girl named Melinda and she had something happen to her right before school started and she didn’t tell anyone. Then as the school year progressed she wasn’t making any friends and even the only friend she had unfriended her. THen at the end she finally told someone.
"Forgiving is not forgetting. It's letting go of the hurt". What this quote means is that instead of holding onto something that has hurt us, we should let it go so that we are able to move on and not have pain burden us for the rest of our lives. In the novel Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson, we are introduced to the main character, Melinda Sordino. Melinda busted an end-of-summer-party by calling the cops due to something mortifying that happened to her.
She is categorized amongst those children who are affected by depression from a very young age. Experiencing everyday like a nearly-lifeless being, the child sets a tremendous example of bravery, as she ultimately understands how difficult life can be but still does not lose hope in recovering through her illness. The protagonist embarks on an imaginative journey, navigating her way through strange worlds and overcoming fears and challenges before arriving at a magical and rewarding ending. The innocent girl is shown to be transferring into a whole new environment, taking along with her the mental pain of depression. Overtime, she gains rewards of a red tree in her bedroom and moves back into the world as well as start to feel happy again.
In literature, the technique of symbolism is used to convey an idea about a subject, person, or place. In the works of Amy Tan and Julia Alvarez, symbolism is influential throughout their stories. The story of ¡Yo! is a great example of how well Julia establishes the symbols of a haunting folklore to a real-life terror. Although the story of ¡Yo! takes place in the United States, it tells the story of a family that escapes from The Dominican Republic during the time of a terrifying wave of dictatorship.
They hold unhealthy ideologies that no kid can thrive in. After burning themselves, being pushed out of moving vehicles, burning themselves again, and becoming subjects of sexual assault multiple times, these children never experience true nurture and healing of their pain. The parents have a ‘big kids don’t cry’ attitude which is not a lifestyle young kids thrive in. Jeanette’s issues are shot down especially by her mother. When she informs her mom her Uncle Stanley was touching her and “...playing with himself”, Rose Mary sympathizes with Uncle Stanley’s loneliness and tells Lori, “If you don’t think you’re hurt, then you aren’t” (Walls 184).
Laurie Halse Anderson Mr. Emmons ENG1D1.62 Trauma portrayed in Speak April 4, 2023 “Don’t expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself” (Anderson 159). Melinda saying this displays her growth, as this fact strongly contrasts her more timid, shy behavior at the beginning of the book. Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, has a character named Melinda Sordino slowly gain the strength to speak up after being raped during a party that previous summer.
In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the protagonist, Melinda, is assigned to create a tree a million different ways all year. In doing so she finds ways to convey her emotions through her drawings. There are many different types of trees in the world. A tree that shows symbolism and draws emotion out of me would have to be a weeping willow tree. The weeping willow tree is elegant, girly, but has a tragically beautiful side to it.
The Rebellious Daughter: Analyzing the Theme of Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” The story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan explores the deep familial emotions between a mother and her daughter. Jing-Mei’s mother had left China to come to America after losing her family, and had been raising Jing-Mei in America with her second husband. Despite her mother’s grand hopes for Jing-Mei to become successful in America by becoming a child prodigy, Jing-Mei did not share the same opinions.
Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson uses literary devices to help the reader better understand Melinda’s personal changes and growth. Trees, lips, and coldness are all symbolically used to represent the changes of Melinda. Throughout the novel, trees play a big part in symbolizing Melinda. Melinda is constantly drawing and relating to trees in the book.
She tries to navigate through her first year of high school, and it seems like the entire student body despises her; she feels more alone than ever. I will be analyzing and making connections to three specific elements in this novel: the search for one’s identity, Melinda’s inner conflict,
Despite the relative ease of a modern American’s life when compared literally any other point in history, there is a striking increase in anxiety over the past decade. In 1986, 14% of college freshmen reported anxious symptoms, but this past year it jumped to 41% (Denizet-Lewis). John Green, the author of Turtles All the Way Down, shares in this struggle and personally relates to the many young adults who suffer from this condition. This novel, despite many differences, holds a near autobiographical nature of its author as he inscribes his symptoms and difficulties into the main character, Aza Holmes. Green’s rich depiction of the main protagonist and her internal conflict combines with a modern narrative structure to convey a universal theme that speak to today’s generation.
Evelyn How Mr. Catrette Lit/Writ 7 September 2015 In Two Kinds, a short story by Amy Tan, it is about a mom who pushes her daughter and strives for her to be some type of prodigy. The mom came from a tough background, moving to San Francisco after losing her parents, her family home, her first husband, and two twin baby girls. She “believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America”, so she didn’t regret her decision.
