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Using Plot Developments In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

1064 Words5 Pages

Write an essay using plot developments in Speak to clearly analyze the psychological and self-destructive effects of Melinda being raped by Andy Evans. Tired is what Melinda is. All she ever is, tired. Tired of people, tired of school, tired of life, but she wasn’t always. She used to have hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations, desires, ambitions, a will to live even. Now she is exhausted and demoralized. What happened to her you might ask. What happened to the lively, hopeful girl I raised her parents might’ve asked themselves. What happened to the energetic, amazing girl I once knew her friends might’ve asked their selves. The words Melinda felt she couldn’t say; the burden of it too much to even utter the words. What she didn’t say was that she was defiled and violated by someone she thought she liked. Who didn’t even give her enough regard to realize she didn’t want what he gave to her. No, he completely disregarded her and took her virginity, dignity, innocence, and hope. He held her down, and covered her mouth, and raped her. The answer to your question is Andy Evans. What happened to Melinda was Andy Evans. At a party, during the summer before high school she was sexually …show more content…

She doesn’t trust herself to know is she was actually raped or not or if her attraction to Andy and drunken state was consent. She won’t go to the party with David, a boy she actually likes, because she felt she couldn't trust him because she trusted Andy and he hurt her. Throughout her days things such as dissection of a frog or invitations to pizza parties causes her to flashback and re-live memories of what happened that she so desperately wants to forget. Seeing her rapist in the hall every day and not being able to and feeling like she can’t say anything about what he did. She sees him talking to other potential victims and she wants to help them, but has trouble finding her

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508 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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634 Words | 3 Pages

This shows that Melinda was so traumatized by what she experienced it caused her to become silent. Along with that because everyone around gave off the impression that she was disliked, Melinda felt she had no one she felt safe enough around to explain what happened that night. As the school year went on, Melinda

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720 Words | 3 Pages

High school, it’s a necessary part of life, yet no one wants to be in it. This is the case and more for freshman Melinda. Melinda is the protagonist in the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. She is going through a very rough time that she is having trouble dealing with on her own. Before her freshman year of high school she was raped at a party, no one knew that this happened.

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755 Words | 4 Pages

When she says “My head is killing me, my throat is killing me, my stomach bubbles with toxic waste. I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice, or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my mind too?”

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1027 Words | 5 Pages

The novel Speak was written by Laurie Halse Anderson, which features a girl named Melinda who is starting her first year in high school. Melinda is hated by her peers and seem to have a heavyweight surrounding her. As the story goes on the reader learns that Melinda’s depressive state is because of the traumatic experience of being raped. Throughout the novels entirety Melinda is shown attempting to take control over her life and to get through the school year in one piece. Speak gave many people the opportunity to put themselves in the place of a rape victim.

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672 Words | 3 Pages

Walking home in the dark one night she thinks, “The world’s a dangerous place... Assume the worst. ”(Anderson, 132). The rape causes this paranoia, which keeps her from enjoying herself and spending time with friends, namely David. She thinks back to what has happened, what IT has done to her, “ In my head my voice is clear as a bell: ‘NO I DON’T WANT TO!’ But I can’t spit it out,”(Anderson, 135).

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805 Words | 4 Pages

After Melinda admits to herself that she was raped, Melinda starts to realize that

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562 Words | 3 Pages

In Speak, Melinda was a normal teenage girl with decent grades and lots of friends. Then, she went let that all get ruined when she went to a party without telling her parents and got raped, she called the police to the party and ended up losing all her friends. After the rape she took a terrible course of actions that only extended her suffering by adopting depressed moping behaviors and worst of all, not telling anyone about the rape. Personally, I feel there was a much better solution to her problem that she didn’t take. Before the rape, Melinda was a popular girl with decent grades and a good relationship with her parents.

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877 Words | 4 Pages

In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, The book follows a ninth grade student named Melinda Sordino through her first year of high school. She has trouble in school because during the summer she calls the cops on a party that she is attending. Now all her friends won't talk to her and the whole hates her for what she has done. This affects Melinda in a negative was and forces herself to stay quiet and to herself for the whole year. Readers feel that Melinda should stay her quiet self through the situations she was handed during the novel but, Melinda should speak on the situations that are present to her because they would have turned out better for her than her not talking about them.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Speak (1999), a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about Melinda Sordino, a girl whose problems started the day she was raped. That tragic event led to many changes in her life, she got isolated from the people that surrounded her, including family, friends and classmates. She did not speak to any one, feeling trapped and prey of her own thoughts and emotions, which is why, for this written assignment I’ve decided to write a diary entry in which Melinda Sordino talks about a dream she had that changed her perspective about life. The reason why I chose this type of text is because I think that the informal style and the first-person point-of-view allow the readers to place themselves in the same position as the one writing it. In this case, the diary entry goes for all those teenagers that, as Melinda, feel trapped and alone in a cruel world, thinking they do not fit on it.

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400 Words | 2 Pages

In the book Speak Melinda called the cops on the party or for help? Nobody knows why exactly they just alienate her from anyone like her best friends which are now her ex best friends to anything like playing "games" in physical education. In the beginning of the book the character Melinda is really just trying to fit in with it being the first day of school and all. She had no friends because what happened over the summer (or what people think happened anyway).

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

Melinda, when already starting healing herself, decided to write a note in the bathroom, so everyone could, anonymously, understand that Andy Evans was a horrible influence for everyone. She didn’t expect any major result because of this, but she definitely got one. After writing this note on the bathroom wall, numerous girls started adding to it and criticizing, even more, Andy’s attitude towards girls. This made other girls, that previously thought that he was an exceptional person, realize that he definitely wasn’t. “Rachel is in her glory.

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505 Words | 3 Pages

Speak was a very inspirational book to me because of all the situations that Melinda overcame and even though at first she wasn’t very open, she later let herself speak the truth. The main focus of the book was letting yourself speak the truth and let someone help you during difficult times. It shows you not to endure all the pain but to talk about it. The book was written from her point of view and I think the author did good by putting it this way because we got to see how she thought of people and what she was feeling inside. At the beginning of the book it starts off by her having no friends because of something that happened in the past.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

The cause of Melinda’s dreary mood obviously comes from IT’s abuse. Andy Evans constantly harassing Melinda in the hallways reminds her of the horrid rape and keeps the image in her mind. This is why Melinda cannot wake up from her nightmare and is emotionally unstable. To sum up, Melinda’s dismal mood is greatly portrayed through the metaphors of

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734 Words | 3 Pages

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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