Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson: Character Analysis

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

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