A Critique of Speak Keeping a secret for a whole school year would be a challenge. One may find that the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson explores the challenges of keeping a secret. The story is about a girl, Melinda Sordino, who gets raped over the summer at a party and is helpless. That year at school all of her best friends are now her ex-friends because they didn’t know what happened. She doesn’t tell anyone about this terrifying memory until the end of the year. Then everything changes. The characters, setting and theme makes this a very compelling story. The first element that contributes to the success of the story was the characters. Melinda Sordino, Rachel Bruin, Heather, Andy Evans and Ivy are the main characters. Melinda is the girl in the book that gets raped by Andy Evans and no one knows about it until the end of the story. Rachel was one of Melinda’s best friend but, has totally turned against Melinda because Melinda called the cops at the party over the summer, but Rachel doesn 't know that Andy raped her. Heather is Melinda’s first friend in high school and was always here friend since she moved from Ohio, like Melinda did. Ivy is another one of Melinda’s best friends. She helps out Melinda a lot in art class and they both also dislike Andy Evans. Another important element that …show more content…
It is clear that keeping a secret for a whole school year would be a challenge, and the characters, setting, and theme all contribute to the success of the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Melinda moved on from the challenge of not speaking and finally spoke up in the end and that made everything in her life change for the better. The novel continues to be popular because of the message to speak up when nothing is going your way. Melinda got raped and did not tell anyone about this terrifying memory until the end of the school year. She lived a rough life through her first year of high school. What may one do if they were in the same situation as Melinda was
Throughout the book Melinda has problems with her family. For example, they don 't communicate with her and instead choose to just communicate by writing notes to one another. Also, her parents are disappointed with her grades. They also are constantly arguing with each other.
Speak is a book that deals with a very dark subject. It is something that will need an open-mind and also a lot of empathy to comprehend. Our protagonist Melinda Sordino is a girl who was abandoned by her friend due to something she did at the end of the summer party. When school starts for her freshman year of high school,she an outcast, a nobody, someone who was forgotten, and a mute. The author Laurie Halse Anderson does a very magnificent job of putting the reader almost exactly as through what the protagonist experiences.
Then starting high school people change and everyone ends up hating certain people for something they cannot control. Plus, they lose all friends they have in the mix of things. In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda Sordino gets raped the summer before high school at a party. She was extremely drunk and called the cops after the incident happened.
Main Characters Annabel is another main character in the story and she is a Bona Fide Member at school. She is very nice to everyone and is very serious about school. Her family has a good bit of money, so some people consider her as a rich kid. Strobe is older than Annable and Toby, he is also
The main characters are the dog(Bailey, Ellie, Toby, Buddy), Ethan, Maya, and Jakob. The dog is loyal, smart, brave, loving, funny, determined, and strong. Ethan, Maya, and Jakob are loving, caring, kind, adventurous, and creative. Bailey is a Golden Retriever and his first owner is Ethan. Ellie is a German Shepherd and she is in the K-9 unit.
" Speak also states on page 161 " I am a deer in headlights of a tractor, is he going to hurt me again? He couldn't in school... why am I so afraid. " These examples from the text show all the problems Melinda had, for instance what Andy did to her,
During her time there, she meets three women with distinct personalities: Moral-Minded Frances, Talkative Pearl and Headstrong Charlotte. Together, the four of them create a strong bond, becoming more like sisters. However, a drastic change occurs at the company, when many workers (and sadly, Charlotte) suffer an illness that is
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).
Finding one passion could be tricky. Sometimes we confuse passion with skills, passion is something that you do and enjoy no matter how tired or even if it doesn’t make you a millionaire. Skills are something that you are good at but you don’t enjoy, one will continue on this path because we need to pay our bills. This doesn’t make it right or wrong but we should be happy with ourselves doing what we enjoy.
Lastly, Tiny Soderball was a hired immigrant just alike Lena. Tiny was always getting in trouble with the men so all of the other citizens looked at her differently. Tiny did not settle with that and she then decided to travel to Alaska and take part in the Gold Rush. Tiny opened up her own hotel and grew a fortune. Lena, Ántonia, and Tiny go against the traditional female role, they maintain their independence and they take risks causing them to end up very successful.
A relationship between a father and a son is a sacred bond, one created at birth and strengthened over time. This paternal relationship is core to the value of family, a likewise bond of faith and trust. Such bonds are tested during times of hardship and pain, seen most clearly during times of war. During the events of World War II, and the gruesome events of the Holocaust, this truth was never more true. Through works such as the memoir Night, by survivor Elie Wiesel, and the artistry of the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, directed by Roberto Benigni, these times of hardships are kept alive in common memory.
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.
Speech Sounds 1) Summary A mysterious disease has swept across the nation and deprived many of their abilities of communication; speeches, literacy, as well as the lives of numerous people were lost. Rye, after the death of her family to the disease, was making a trip to Pasadena out of loneliness and desperation in search of her remaining relatives. While riding on the bus Rye encountered Obsidian, a man dressed in police uniform trying to restore peace in a society where miscommunication led to violence and government was obsolete.
The characters in this book are Lucy (main character), Sarah, Zach, Gray, Miranda, Leo, and Soledad. My favorite character of the book is Lucy Scarborough, because her character overcomes many tasks, and she shows her strength and compassion throughout the story. The author unfolds the story by starting from the beginning of Lucy’s fate. Miranda Lucy’s biological mother fell into insanity when Lucy was born due to a curse that runs through Lucy’s family that only her and her foster parents know about.
Speak Journal Response This journal is in response to the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. As a coming-of-age contemporary novel, Speak discusses many sensitive issues that are still prominent even today. In this story, we explore the life of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old girl who is beginning high school right after experiencing an utterly traumatic event: rape. Melinda is left friendless, with no one to help and support her after what happened.