In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree. " When reading the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the reader will steadily notice that, as the story goes on, Melinda's artistic abilities will improve. In this essay, I will explain how trees are used to portray Melinda's transformation, by using quotes from the text and support to back it up. In her first Art class, Melinda randomly chooses the "tree" as the object she will try to draw for the rest of her school year.
Their teacher, Mr. Freeman assigns the class a year-long project to pick a random object and turn it into a real piece of art. Melinda’s object was a tree. As the year goes on her art develops and her tree does as well. And by the end of the year when she has begun to fully heal and move past what happened to her, her tree is finished, and a beautiful piece of art. Melinda’s tree is brought up throughout the book as a symbol of how she has
For example, the art piece she made with turkey bones, a Barbie doll head, culinary utensils, and tape had evinced her emotional distress. Mr. Freeman had seen these sensibilities within Melinda's artwork as well by saying that "[it] has meaning. Pain" (65). Melinda has an idea in her head of what she wants her tree to look like, which also symbolizes herself, "a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun" (78). Melinda can create this tree only if she becomes like this tree as a person by surrendering into acceptance of the atrocious offense committed against her and the scars that came with it.
In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino struggles through high school, all while dealing with the aftermath of a rape. Throughout the story, she creates artwork of trees for art class. These trees symbolize Melinda's growth throughout the novel as she deals with being raped, depression, anxiety, drama, her parents, her grades, and her rapist continuously teasing and tormenting her. On Page 12 of Speak, Melinda is in art class and is told to choose a slip from a broken globe.
That's what the nurse told me, who was standing outside. They rolled him off the truck and the white men drove away”(Stockett 178). Imagine being in a dark, isolated room, afraid of what will happen next. Everything feels cold dreary, and full of despair. When Aibileen talks about Treelore in the book, she exhibits the sadness and pain for Aibileen.
In the beginning of the book, the motif of trees is used to support what Melinda’s life is like after what happened at the party. When Melinda is choosing her art project, she is quite confused on how simple and basic her topic is. Melinda says “He stops at my table. I plunge my
Melinda is in art class and has chosen a tree as her “destiny”. Melinda’s tree in Speak symbolize Melinda’s feelings. First, the tree in Speak symbolizes Melinda’s feelings. In this scene, Melinda is in Biology class, and she is drawing a tree with David, her lab partner.
In the beginning, Melinda’s tree seemed as if it had been struck by lightning because it was so burnt, hurt, and destroyed. She started to make the tree less and less dead which led her to become more
Laurie Halse Anderson uses the tree as a motif to trace Melinda’s growth from someone who is afraid and depressed to someone who is strong and more stable. In the beginning of the story, we can tell that Melinda is very depressed despite her internal sense of humor. Since the party that she called
This is shown when she starts to scream at God and say, “Shut up you! Get out of my life!! I never want to see you again!” (Satrapi 70). She is pushing God out of her life and its changing her perspective on life as she goes on through the book.
She at first thinks the task of drawing a tree is easy, but she soon realizes it is harder than it seems. Melinda can easily picture a tree in her mind, but she can not draw it. This relates to Melinda before and after she was raped by Andy Evans. Before the rape, Melinda is represented by the tree when she says, “I can see it in my head: a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun”(78). Melinda was completely fine before the rape occurred, and she was happy with herself and her surroundings.
By using an excessive amount of comas, she is able to capture the rush. An example of this is when Sylvia takes her “daring step across into the old pine-tree” (35) and finds out the task at hand is harder than believed. The run on sentence describing the difference of the oak tree to the pine tree allows the reader to infer the danger present and allows Sylvia to be portrayed even more as a heroine. Jewett utilizes narrative pace is again when youthful Sylvia is almost to the summit, describing how she is becoming part of the tree by successfully defeating its obstacle like “all the hawks, and bats, and moths” (50) and the animals, who for centuries have been known to use this tree.
Speak Essay: Figurative language has a tremendous influence on literature because it enlivens the words and makes them jump off the page. This allows the reader to visualize the scene in a unique, explicit way. Laurie Anderson’s Speak demonstrates an abundant use of figurative language. Figurative language appears in various forms; this includes simile, metaphor, personification, symbol, hyperbole and more.
Although she is innocent in the beginning of the novel, she becomes a mature and understanding child throughout the course of the novel triggered by the trial of Tom Robinson. In the novel To
Art is way of expression. People can use actions and art or express themselves in ways other than speaking. In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, symbolism holds a big significance. The trees mentioned throughout the book symbolize Melinda’s changing “seasons” (her “growing” as a person). People, like trees, go through phases, they freeze in the winter, becoming nothing but lonely limbs without leaves covered with white slush.
