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Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson Analysis

725 Words3 Pages

When a Tree Falls in the Forest, does it Make a Sound?

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a novel following a 13-year-old girl, Melinda Sordino. The book depicts the aftereffects of sexual assault and brings awareness to the issue. Throughout the book, Melinda struggles to find her voice after being assaulted and becoming depressed. The book shows her effort to be able to find her voice again and put her demons of the past behind her. Laurie Halse Anderson represents Melinda's ability to move past her assault through her trees in art class and Melinda uses that assignment as a source of communication and finding her voice to speak up about her assault and depression.

Melinda does not have enough of a support group to feel comfortable telling …show more content…

"I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep? Mom sees the wrist at breakfast. Mom: 'I don’t have time for this.'" 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 …show more content…

Thankfully, I was not assaulted but I have struggled with my mental health and have learned and lived through the struggles of managing and balancing friendships, drama, and academic work. Melinda is sent to the principal’s office for struggling in school. To illustrate, "They [her parents] keep asking questions like "'What is wrong with you?' and 'Do you think this is cute?' How can I answer? I do not have to. They don't want to hear anything I have to say. (87)" On the contrary, my parents do care. During my silent struggle with my mental health, I felt the same as Melinda, I felt as if no one in the world cared about what I had to say and why I was struggling. One of the reasons this book became so popular was because so many people around the world could connect with their life and this book, like

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Imagine being through a traumatic event and didn’t know how to tell someone, or maybe not had anyone to talk to about how you were feeling? That's how Melinda Sordino felt as the main character in the book Speak by Halse Anderson. Melinda was going through the hells of highschool alone after being raped at a party, and ditched by all of her friends who she thought cared about her. She is bullied, harassed, picked on, and failing all of her classes. Except for art class where she finds the only place that she feels safe anymore.

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Also, the closet her “safe place” she always used to hide what happened at the party from everyone else becomes a dangerous place. “It”, also known as Andy Evans the boy who rapes her at the party breaks into the closet and tries to sexually assault her again. Melinda realizes she can't let this happen again and therefore fights back with everything she has. She realizes that her closet is not safe anymore and that she can't hide from her trauma. And that she can't hide from this problem, and she needs to stand up and speak to the problem.

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For example, on page one-hundred and twenty-four of the novel, Melinda states, “I have to stay away from the closet, go to all my classes. I will make myself normal. Forget the rest of it.” This shows that Melinda has not been good in school and been interacting with

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Melinda goes into a downward spiral; with her forms of expressing and coping with depression becoming progressively

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“You don’t understand, my head voice answers”(28). Written in 1999 by Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak is a book that takes place in the freshman year of a school outcast by the name of Melinda Sordino. After she had ruined an important end-of-the-year summer party by calling the police, she becomes isolated from her classmates and suffers trauma from an unknown event, causing her to be mute. This heart wrenching and ahead-of-its-time story is told in the perspective of Melinda, a victim of sexual assault, and as the story progresses we learn more about the truth hidden behind the thick silence and judgement about what really happened at the party and who was responsible for the unknown incident. After carefully weaving together the elements of

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The author’s greater purpose with this conflict is to connect with readers who may be survivors of rape. She wants to create a familiar setting and tone with these readers so they may relate to the story. Melinda’s mental state at this point of story leaves you wondering: Will she be able to conquer her

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583 Words | 3 Pages

Melinda avoids talking about her assault as she is struggling with feelings of guilt, shame and fear, fear of being judged or not believed if she tells someone about what happened to her. Melinda is haunted by the memory of her rape which contributes to her decision to keep her assault a secret. Therefore,with Melindas

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755 Words | 4 Pages

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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849 Words | 4 Pages

Depression is something that everyone has felt. However severe or minor, that feeling of hopelessness and uselessness is a never-ending void that will continuously pull someone in until there is nothing left. Such is the feeling that Melinda Sordino suffers in the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Her depression stems from being raped at a party before freshman year and becomes a social outcast because no one knows what happened. During her first year at high school, she slowly learns how to express herself through her art, symbolized by a tree.

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The new Melinda sees that she needs to say something and she works up the courage to help her once-friend. This really shows Melinda development as a person. She is overcoming her pain and

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This is because she believes there is no one to trust or even if she tells someone they will not believe her or even shame her for “lying” about it. If Melinda had sought support, she would’ve realized people were there with similar experiences with the same person. Instead of just spreading the word like she did on the bathroom stall she might’ve received support not just through writing on a wall but maybe from fellow classmates or students who might’ve gone through the same thing Body Paragraph #3 Due: 3/28/23

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Melinda’s parents advise her to get extra help from her teachers; she then says, "My parents commanded me to stay after school everyday for extra help from my teachers. I agreed to stay after school. I hang out in my refurbished closet. It is shaping up nicely" (Anderson 50). Melinda isolates herself when her parents instruct her to get extra help from her teachers by hiding in her refurbished closet, preferring to hide rather than get help.

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1218 Words | 5 Pages

Another element in this novel is Melinda’s inner conflict, man vs. self. What Melinda has been through greatly affected her everyday life. She struggles with depression, dislikes her appearance, and feels ashamed of herself for something that isn 't her fault: “I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else...even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me” (Anderson 51). Andy Evans, the senior who raped her, made her feel worthless. This situation is much like the one in the novel The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

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1013 Words | 5 Pages

Freedom of speech and other freedoms guaranteed to American citizens by the First Amendment protect our right to information and expression of opinions, which can be infringed upon when books are banned. Book banning refers to the practice of forbidding the use of certain books in school libraries or curricula. Due to this practice, many books have been banned in the United States. One victim of book banning is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson which was banned in all K-12 grades in 2022 due to its perceived political viewpoint, alleged bias against male students, depiction of rape, use of profanity, and portrayal of suicidal ideation. While Speak does display sensitive and mature topics such as sexual assault and self-harm, which should be restricted for

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734 Words | 3 Pages

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about a girl named Melinda, who shows signs of depression throughout the story. She has no friends and is hated by people she doesn’t even know. This is because she called the cops at a party, where she was raped. Anderson includes literary elements to show how Melinda is depressed. Throughout the novel, she uses many different literary elements to show Melinda’s conflict.

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