On the day after prom, which Andy and Rachel went to together, we find out Rachel broke up with Andy because he wouldn’t stop groping her. Andy finds out that Melinda told Rachel that he raped her, he traps Melinda in a closet and attempts to hurt again. This time Melinda is able to shout no and breaks a mirror, holding a glass shard to Andy’s neck. The lacrosse team finds the two and Melinda finally gets help and everyone understands her
Melinda’s grades begin to drop and she starts to self harm by biting her lips until they bleed. When Heather notices that Melinda is depressed, she breaks her friendship with her instead of getting Melinda help. Her parents and guidance counselors notice her sudden decline, but think it’s just a ploy for attention. Months later, Melinda finally admits to herself that she was raped by Andy Evans. She starts going to class and reuniting with her friends.
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.
Something in the past has happened during the summer when Melinda stopped being friends with Rachel that caused their friendship to break apart. Melinda is exaggerating to tell Rachel what happened, which remains unclear, however, it could lead us knowing what caused their friendship to be torn apart. depression As Melinda was being confronted by Mr. Neck in the cafeteria, she thinks, “It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it.
This causes her to be unable to speak as normal and express herself only through self physical acts of hurting herself. However, through her pain, she begins to grow from a victim to a survivor and understands that the only way to go against evil is to speak out against it. Melinda in Speak is a high school freshman who is raped by Andy Evans who is a senior in high school. Due to him raping her she loses her ability to speak normally and say what she feels and how she feels. Melinda gains her confidence to speak in public freely again by the end of the story.
On page 114 in “Speak” Melinda’s mother says “That's the point, she won't say anything! I can't get a word out of her she's mute.” not saying anything is just one of the ways a victim could be affected. By not saying anything they think it will help to keep their thoughts inside.
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).
Not even Melinda’s “best friends” took the time to listen to the actual story. Melinda’s only response to this horrible incident is silence. This is only the start of Melinda Sordino's story. There is much more pain and hardship that will come throughout the novel
This moment is a huge turning point in Melinda 's life. This marks the moment when she finally speaks up about what happened. This event shows so much about who Melinda was and is becoming. Prior to telling Rachel, Melinda decides to send Rachel a note warning her about Andy. “I groan and rip out a piece of notebook paper.
Andy Evans, "Melinda's rapist", commits verbal, physical, and psychological violence against her whenever he encounters her and even against any other girl in his school. Andy confronts her to make her scared and causes her to skip school and not to attend any class which causes her to get into more trouble. Another character is Rachel; Melinda's ex-best friend. Unfortunately, Rachel has totally turned against Melinda. She, like everybody else, seems to believe that Melinda called the cops at the party just to get everybody in trouble.
Melinda was raped by Andy Evans. Melinda feels ashamed of herself and feels as if she’s to blame for what happened to her. She feels as if she has no one to tell about the encounter. She want’s to tell someone so bad, but doesn't see that telling someone about the encounter she had with Andy Evans would help her, but she feels it would only make her feel worse. There is no one there to listen to her, she felt as if no one would really care.
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.
After Melinda admits to herself that she was raped, Melinda starts to realize that
She feels ashamed and blames herself for not being a good enough wife for Tom, just as Melinda feels guilty as though the rape was her fault, even if it really wasn’t. It is later revealed that in reality, it was actually Tom who had done all those atrocious things. He would lie to Rachel, blaming her for all the things he had done, just to make her feel guilty, weak, and worthless. Just how Andy had made Melinda feel after he raped her. With this connection, I can better understand Melinda’s character through Rachel’s in The Girl on the Train, which I read and enjoyed before I read
Melinda cannot say what she is feeling and so those around her cannot understand how she feels. “You don’t understand….” Pg. 28 Melinda is constantly saying how she wants to forget all about the event and not let it affect her high school career.
