Imagine you're venturing into your freshman year of high school forever scarred by the tragedies that you experienced over the summer. You blame yourself for the loss or your innocents. You question whether the alcohol was a wise choice or if you led him on. You can't help but think if maybe you hadn't walked away from the party this would've never happened. You know you were raped but you don't know if it was your fault or his You're too afraid to speak up about what happened so you become the outcast hated by your former friends and disbanded from your former clique. You know if you spoke up about what happened things would be better but your afraid no one will believe you. So you sit in silence cast into an emotional turmoil of a lost …show more content…
After reading the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, I recommend that other high school students read it based on its figurative style and satire. Through the book Speak there is a myriad of figurative language that runs parallel to Melinda Sordino's life and the intractable conflicts she's facing. Based on this students should read the book because Anderson's figurative style is rich with imaginative metaphors and symbols with predictable meanings. One example of this is Malindas Barbie doll sculpture made from bare turkey bones and the head of a decapitated Barbie, “I pop the head of a Barbie doll and set it inside the turkey's body… I place a piece of tape over the Barbies mouth” (Anderson 63-64). One may interpret that she's doing this to express the gruesome loss of her identity and she chose the barbie because like herself the Barbie is fake and plastic on the outside appearing perfect to the world. But on the inside her mind is being ravaged by a depression, a need for an identity, a denouement to what happened to her, and a need for social acceptance. The tape represents her inability to speak about her rape and how her voice has been ripped away from her and covered by self blame and the fear of speaking