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Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson: Character Analysis

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Through the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda the main character (protagonist) takes us through her first year of high school, the ninth grade. In the summer before ninth grade Melinda had a traumatic experience happened to her that night at a party full of senior. In the beginning mets her first teacher who takes advantage of his power as a teacher. She get in art class were they are assigned to a school round project. All different objects, Melinda gets a tree. Through the novel Melinda and the tree seems to grow from her darkest moments in life or the warm up to life and better yet, her acceptance about what happened to her. “The room screams Heather. Why can’t I figure out how to do that? Not that I want my room to scream ‘Heather!’ -that would be too creepy. But a little whisper of ‘Melinda’ would be nice……. 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…. but when I try to carve it , it looks like a dead tree.”(33,78) These quotes connote to how Melinda has no sense of who she is or what she wants to be. The quote …show more content…

I wash my face in the sink until there is nothing left of it, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. A slick nothing…. I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep?”(45,87) Now these quotes connote the worst of Melinda’s thoughts. The point where she didn't want to show people that she was in pain but let her body do that for her. Thats all that Melinda wanted, for people to see her hidden message of help. Melinda liked the pain she gave herself because that’s what she could only feel, since she was raped, to young to understand. Since she did not explain why she called the cops that night of the party she was hated. She decided to ostracizes herself so she won't feel their hatred towards

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Melinda is going through the same procedure as the tree. If Melinda put her past behind her and move on, it will give her a chance to grow. "Let me tell you about it." This quote made me happy because it was coming from a girl who stayed to herself, who wouldn't tell anybody anything, even though she had experienced something tragic. Deep down inside, her not to say nothing was hurting her even

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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.

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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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