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Sexual Assault And Rape In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

1206 Words5 Pages

More children are exposed to sexual assault and rape than you probably think. According to d2l.org (Darkness to Light), “About 1 in 10 children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.” Melinda Sordino is the one out of ten. In Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino shows us the thoughts and feelings experienced by many of these young victims. Melinda was raped by Andy Evans while attending an end-of-summer party before her freshman year of high school. This assault impacted Melinda in various ways and many symptoms remained with her throughout the school year. As a result of the sexual abuse, Melinda begins to showcase the various psychological effects of rape; physical and mental instability, feelings of guilt and worthlessness …show more content…

Melinda proves this to be true on numerous occasions. First, Melinda puts herself down due to her looks and personality. This is shown specifically on page 17, ‘Two muddy circle-eyes under black-dash eyebrows, piggy-nose nostrils and a chewed up horror of a mouth… I get out of bed and take down the mirror…” This explains how Melinda would rather look at a blank wall than her own reflection. She does it once again to the mirror in her closet at school in ‘Closet Space” on page 50. Melinda also shows her feelings of guilt and worthlessness by not believing that she can do the same things as the other kids. Melinda doesn’t think she is able to do the same things as other kids so she doesn’t even bother trying. This is seen in “Riding Shotgun” on page 121-122. Mr. Freeman, Melinda’s art teacher, mentions how her work has been growing a lot. Melinda replies with, “I don’t know anything. My trees suck.” This shows that Melinda doesn’t think anything she does will ever be as good as anyone else and that she doesn’t believe in herself. Melinda won’t tell anyone what happened because she feels guilty as if it was her fault. This is shown on page 51 when Melinda says, “I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else… [but] even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me.’ Melinda feels that it isn’t even necessary to tell anyone because the memory …show more content…

Throughout the novel, Melinda displays physical and mental instability by physically making herself sick, having an extreme lack of concentration as well as acts of self-destructive behavior. She proves her feelings of guilt and worthlessness by putting herself down due to her looks and personality, by not thinking she can do the same things as the other students at her school and by not telling anyone about her rape because she feels guilty, as if it was her fault. Lastly, Melinda shows symptoms of depression through her loss of interest in everyday activities, believing that everything she does is awful and she has no hope and by her intense lack of communication skills with other people. People who have experienced sexual assault similar to Melinda are more likely to fall into depression, sometimes even resulting in self-harm or suicide. In the end, Melinda overcame her emotions and dark thoughts and grew stronger from the experience. In the wise words of an unknown author, “Sometimes the strongest women are the ones who love beyond all faults, cry behind closed doors, and fight battles no one knows

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After Melinda gets home from an exhausting day at school and realizes how bad her scabs are she tells us, “I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall” (Anderson 17). Melinda often hides from her problems. The hiding of the mirror signifies how she is not strong enough to confront her problems and instead chooses to hide from them. Mirrors also depict her mental state when she starts to redecorate her closet for the first time, she says “The first thing to change is the mirror.

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Furthermore, Melinda had admitted that she could “[feel] the wind blow and hear the mockingbird whistling on the way back to her nest. But when [she tries] to carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a child’s drawing. [She cannot] bring it to life” (78). She wistfully imagines confessing her distress, but she remains reluctant and retreats from transitioning into speaking again. There are many moments within the novel where Anderson uses symbolism to illustrate Melinda's desire to refurbish her life as this one, but it is hard for Melinda to do so without the choice of acknowledging what happened.

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From that point onward, Melinda hides from herself by taking down or covering mirrors, an act to forget her past. It is made clear that Melinda dislikes looking at herself as it reminds her of what happened that night at the party. As can be seen in this quote, “I watch myself in the mirror across the room... Two muddy-circle eyes

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In the book Speak by, Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda, tries to find her voice all throughout the book. Then she meets her art teacher Mr. Freeman. He helps her all throughout her school year express her and stand up for herself at the end of the year, when she has another problem with the same guy that hurt her before school started. Mr. Freeman helps Melinda express herself by getting better at speaking, expressing herself, and also standing up for herself. Melinda was finding her voice all throughout the school year.

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Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should not be banned from libraries and schools. Speak should not be banned from libraries and schools because they teach valuable life lessons that kids can benefit from and grow as a person from reading about. For example,“You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win"(Anderson, 159). Throughout Speak, the main character Melinda struggles to speak up about her drastic assault.

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Consequently, Melinda was running away from Mr. Neck and stumbled across and old janitor’s closet, this helped in her transformation of who she is at the end of the novel. When Melinda ran into the closet, she felt safe. Moreover, the closet helped Melinda in many ways, such as a way to exit from drama. Her closet was her safe haven, she made many decisions that bettered her and people she cares about. For example, in the closet she conflicted about what to tell Rachel or to say nothing at all.

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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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She is an iconic character for overcoming The Beast. There are many other examples, of her fear and especially overcoming it everywhere in many stories. For example, a song titled “I Walk To My Own Song” By Stratovarius, in a stanza it says, “High I fly, I touch the sky, Far above the frozen minds, You can't kill my dreams, You can't kill my spirit, I was born to be free.” Melinda was very much pinned down after being raped, but she then rises above Evans and screams no. She shows that she cannot be touched, she flew high, and she showed Evans then in the closet that she is better than him, that Evans cannot kill her dreams or spirit.

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" Melinda is showing she needs help, and her mom could not understand any less. While Melinda shows she is not okay, no one cares enough to help her. If there was even one person who saw her whimper for help, she may have ended up in a much healthier environment, getting the help needed. But there was not, and Melinda was forced to struggle through her first year without friends and terrible grades along with a stinging memory of her being sexually

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Additionally, Melinda uses negative ways to cope by doing self-harm and isolating herself. Melinda also uses positive mechanisms to cope with her trauma by expressing herself through art and standing up for herself. Melinda states, "For a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning” (Anderson 30). This demonstrates how Melinda uses the arts to creatively express her emotions. She is also showing Mr. Freeman how she feels, which is a positive gesture.

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Isolation is when one is set apart from others and is virtually alone. In Laurie Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, Melinda, isolates herself and is further isolated from others. Isolation can be seen through three symbols: lips, mirrors and a closet. Melinda thinks no one cares about what she has to say, resulting in silence. After the incident in the summer, Melinda cannot bare to look at herself.

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She constantly suffered nightmares, plagued from the truth and what happened that night. She never outwardly says anything about it. While Melinda’s denial is a common response to trauma it is

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Sexual violence can affect anyone. There is no end all be all strategy to avoid any and all sexual violence. However, studies have shown that some people are more likely to be affected by sexual violence than others. Typically, the people most likely to be at risk of sexual violence are people who are disenfranchised, in prison where a whole different cultural dynamic exists and people who can’t care for themselves. Just a few of these groups are Native American women, male prisoners, and children.

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The cause of Melinda’s dreary mood obviously comes from IT’s abuse. Andy Evans constantly harassing Melinda in the hallways reminds her of the horrid rape and keeps the image in her mind. This is why Melinda cannot wake up from her nightmare and is emotionally unstable. To sum up, Melinda’s dismal mood is greatly portrayed through the metaphors of

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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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