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Imagery And Symbolism In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

673 Words3 Pages

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. This slip determines what she creates for the rest of the year. “I plunge my hand into the bottom of the globe and fish out my paper. ‘Tree’. Too easy, I learned how to draw a tree in 2nd grade. I reach for a different slip and Mr. Freeman shakes his head. "Ah-Ah-Ah, you just chose your destiny, you can't change that” (. Melinda is stuck with the tree, which symbolizes not being able to change her past. Melinda might not be able …show more content…

While she works, she finally accepts that she can't change her past, but she can grow. She states, “Andy Evans raped me in August when I was drunk and too young to know what was happening. It wasn’t my fault. He hurt me. It wasn’t my fault. And I’m not going to let it kill me. I can grow. I look at my homely sketch. It doesn’t need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn’t perfect and that makes it just right.” As seen in the text, Melinda finally realizes that she can/has grown. Its not her fault she was raped, it doesn't define her, but it can help shape her. She states that she isn't perfect, similar to her homely sketch, but that's OK; nobody is perfect. Melinda also learns how to reassure herself and how to cope with her trauma, saying “It wasn’t my fault. He hurt me. It wasn't my fault. I won't let it kill me.” This proves her growth throughout this story. The trees have represented this

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On the day after prom, which Andy and Rachel went to together, we find out Rachel broke up with Andy because he wouldn’t stop groping her. Andy finds out that Melinda told Rachel that he raped her, he traps Melinda in a closet and attempts to hurt again. This time Melinda is able to shout no and breaks a mirror, holding a glass shard to Andy’s neck. The lacrosse team finds the two and Melinda finally gets help and everyone understands her

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67). This is the starting point where Melinda starts to come out of her shell. This is really clever from the author considering that every tree starts from a seed, so for the author to use this as a breaking point for Melinda, is very intelligent. She even gets extra credit for showing her teacher that she found a special apple

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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

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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.

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This finally shows how much Melinda has grown and how much she has found her voice. Melinda's growth is demonstrated through her finally being able to say no to Andy unlike the first time, and Melinda saying no shows how she was able to find her voice. Melinda's growth and escape from depression is expressed at the end of the

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In Speak Laurie Halse Anderson uses trees to represent Melinda's emotional growth throughout the novel. At this point of the story she has just been raped and is feeling depressed and alone and it makes her feel “diseased”. “My last tree looks like it died from some fungal infection”(92). At the start of the story she’s in a bad place because she feels that she can't tell anybody about what happened because they might not have a positive output on the things she has been through. When she starts school, everybody hates her for what she did at the party and it makes her feel unwanted.

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Due to her inability to tell anyone what happened she loses the ability to speak and she starts distancing herself from her family and friends. Throughout the book, there are symbolic items that help us know how Melinda is feeling and they also represent the stages Melinda went through

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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).

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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

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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

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This moment is a huge turning point in Melinda 's life. This marks the moment when she finally speaks up about what happened. This event shows so much about who Melinda was and is becoming. Prior to telling Rachel, Melinda decides to send Rachel a note warning her about Andy. “I groan and rip out a piece of notebook paper.

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’ This is symbolism because the tree symbolizes Melinda’s destiny. Another time where symbolism is obvious is on page 16. “Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can’t help myself.

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After randomly selecting a piece of paper that has the word “tree” printed on it, Mr. Freeman states that she had just chosen her destiny. At first, she expresses her confusion as to why something so simple could be so important, but throughout the book her interpretation of trees changes in order to portray a theme of depression. For instance, when Melinda first began painting trees they all appeared to be “nearly dead, but not totally,” and some had even “been hit by lightning” (Anderson 30). The idea that Mr. Freeman presented that the tree is supposed to represent Melinda along with the fact that they’re on the verge of death shows us how she is really feeling on the inside.

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But after the rape, Melinda is not happy with anything in her life and she is always stressed out. This is represented when she states, “But when I try to carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a child’s drawing. I can’t bring it to life. I’d love to give it up” (78). Melinda has changed dramatically, and this is represented by the tree she sees versus the tree she tries to make.

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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.

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