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Symbolism In Anderson's Speak

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According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Nationally, about 8-10 million girls under the age of 18 have experienced rape or attempted rape. In the book SPEAK by Laurie Anderson, Melinda the main character was assaulted at a party by a senior, known as Andy Evans, so she called the cops and got the party busted. Now everyone at her school sees Melinda as a snitch, without knowing what happened. The image of the tree symbolizes Melinda in multiple ways, including her emotions, strength, and growth. Melinda's emotions tended to show through the look of the trees that she drew. When Mr. Freeman had Melinda choose her prompt for the rest of the year and she went to change it, he said, “Ah ah ah, you just choose your destiny, you …show more content…

As Melinda starts to heal, her trees start to look more lively and put together. Compared to when she couldn't even draw a tree at the beginning of the year. Her strength also shined through her artwork. She could imagine the tree almost perfectly in her head, but she couldn't put it on paper. On page 78 of the book Melinda stated, “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.” (Anderson 78). She envisions herself in the future as she grows, gets stronger, as a young adult recovering from an assault. Melinda also became stronger. Melinda becoming dedicated to her art made her look at herself as a survivor and not a victim of Andy Evans. Her reference to the scarring also is related to the impact that the rape has left on her. Melinda's growth by far is shown in most of her drawings of trees. On page 196 it states, “ Roots knob out of the ground and the crown reaches for the sun, tall, and healthy. The new growth is the best part.” (Anderson,

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There are specific people who helped her mature in a certain way. She slowly opens up over the course of the year with support from different people. There are several people in this novel who help Melinda find her “voice”. Mr. Freeman, for example, was an important part of Melinda’s growth. He is Melinda’s art teacher who came off as weird at first

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In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree. " When reading the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the reader will steadily notice that, as the story goes on, Melinda's artistic abilities will improve. In this essay, I will explain how trees are used to portray Melinda's transformation, by using quotes from the text and support to back it up. In her first Art class, Melinda randomly chooses the "tree" as the object she will try to draw for the rest of her school year.

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Their teacher, Mr. Freeman assigns the class a year-long project to pick a random object and turn it into a real piece of art. Melinda’s object was a tree. As the year goes on her art develops and her tree does as well. And by the end of the year when she has begun to fully heal and move past what happened to her, her tree is finished, and a beautiful piece of art. Melinda’s tree is brought up throughout the book as a symbol of how she has

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For example, the art piece she made with turkey bones, a Barbie doll head, culinary utensils, and tape had evinced her emotional distress. Mr. Freeman had seen these sensibilities within Melinda's artwork as well by saying that "[it] has meaning. Pain" (65). Melinda has an idea in her head of what she wants her tree to look like, which also symbolizes herself, "a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun" (78). Melinda can create this tree only if she becomes like this tree as a person by surrendering into acceptance of the atrocious offense committed against her and the scars that came with it.

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On a seemingly emotional high after attending a high school party as a rising freshman, Melinda’s world got turned upside down when she was taken advantage of by a popular senior jock. Along with the pain of the trauma itself, Melinda was reminded of her terrible ordeal each time she came in contact with Andy: “I want to throw up and I can smell him and I run and he remembers and he knows. He whispers in my ear” (Anderson 86). When Andy encroached on her sanctuary in the art room and destroyed her work, Melinda shut down and locked herself in her closet, where she “stuffed [her] mouth with old fabric and screamed until there were no sounds left under [her] skin” (Anderson 162). While interactions with others could incite her anxiety and feelings of depression, continued encounters with her rapist further aggravated Melinda.

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Melinda picks the word “tree.” Annoyed, she goes to pick a new word, but is stopped by her art teacher. Melinda struggles with her project, unable to make her trees look alive and un-child like. “I can see it in my head: a strong oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun…. I can’t bring it to

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In Speak Laurie Halse Anderson uses trees to represent Melinda's emotional growth throughout the novel. At this point of the story she has just been raped and is feeling depressed and alone and it makes her feel “diseased”. “My last tree looks like it died from some fungal infection”(92). At the start of the story she’s in a bad place because she feels that she can't tell anybody about what happened because they might not have a positive output on the things she has been through. When she starts school, everybody hates her for what she did at the party and it makes her feel unwanted.

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Melinda thinks that her drawings are bad and have no value. Melinda feels like the tree because Melinda

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Melinda is in art class and has chosen a tree as her “destiny”. Melinda’s tree in Speak symbolize Melinda’s feelings. First, the tree in Speak symbolizes Melinda’s feelings. In this scene, Melinda is in Biology class, and she is drawing a tree with David, her lab partner.

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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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Melinda gets a tree, but thinks its too easy and wanted another one. Freeman stops because he says its destiny that gave her the theme of a tree. Anyways the more ways she tries to draw the tree the more she can’t. Melinda is hiding a dark secret. She won't talk to anyone about it, and the more the feelings overwhelm her, the more she draws trees.

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The recurring use of trees allows readers to understand Melinda feelings beyond words, as readers are able to visualize her feelings literally through art. Readers of YA readers use symbolism as a way to understand the mood of a novel; at the beginning of the novel, Melina selects a tree as her year-long art project, where she is asked to make her “object say something, express and emotion, speak to every person who looks at it” (Anderson 11). As struggles express emotion through her tree, she is equally incompetent with sharing what occurred the night the police was called. Her meager attempts to construct her tree reflects her misery, “I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning…..

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The visual image that is painted, along with the optimistic tone, describes Sethe’s scars as representations of her strength and growth. Initially, Amy “didn’t speak for a while” after viewing the remnants of Sethe’s punishment, indicating the shock she felt after learning how inhumanely the escaped slave has been treated and yet remains so strong. Instead of focusing on their repulsiveness, Amy positively compares the details of the scars with the different parts of a tree; she starts by saying “[s]ee, here’s the trunk,” with the base of the scars being “red” and “split wide open.” The description of the trunk of a tree paints a strong image as it is damaged, but it still stands tall and firm; it is similar to how Sethe has been through so much, but still maintains a strong mindset to make sure her kids do not have to go through what she has. In addition, Amy continues to analyze the scars by mentioning how the scars are like tree branches with “[t]iny little cherry blossoms.”

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The scars on Sethe’s back show up numerous times in the text, most of the time portrayed as “beautiful”, in the shape of a blossom tree. Seeing the scars as beautiful and turning a painful memory into something hopeful, Amy creates an overall image of trees representative of healing, comfort, and hope as she describes the scars to help Sethe relax and relieve the pain. The scars themselves are a sign of Sethe’s strength since her

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In the chapter The Opposite of Inspiration is… Expiration?, Melinda tells us that “[f]or a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit of lightning. I try to paint them so they are nearly dead, but not

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