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Verbal Abuse By Sharon W. Stark

1515 Words7 Pages

In today’s world, there are countless children that experience verbal abuse in their homes, and this type of abuse can also be seen in writings from today and long ago. In the article “Verbal Abuse,” Sharon W. Stark shares that “verbal abuse is a specific type of psychological or emotional abuse. [...] Verbal abuse can be overt or covert, but it is always related to controlling and manipulating the victim. [... It] may consist of shouting, insulting, intimidating, threatening, shaming, demeaning, or name calling” (Stark 1). Verbal abuse on any victim can come from out of nowhere. This type of abuse is used to have priority over certain people. Victims of verbal abuse eventually start to believe that it is their fault and that the abuser …show more content…

That night she decides that she wants a mental health day the next day so she starts acting sick. In the morning when Mrs. Sordino comes to wake Melinda up, Melidna talks to her and explains she doe not feel one hundred percent. After Mrs. Sordino heard that she rudely exclaimed, “You must be sick. You’re talking” (Anderson 163). Mrs. Sordino is in a way poking fun at Melinda because she does not talk to them anymore. Melinda talking causes Mrs. Sordino to be shocked because she rarely hears Melinda’s voice. Mrs. Sordino is not necessarily thinking about what her child is needing right now. Right now Melinda is in desperate need of a person who will listen to what happened to her at the party and understand her part of the story. She needs someone to confide in and not somebody who is just worried about her grades and yelling about her lack of effort. Mrs. Sodino is not paying attention to Melinda's needs, and is instead focusing on things that, at the moment, are less important. To conclude, these cases of verbal abuse are a little different. For example, after Juliet dies, Lord Capulet comes to the conclusion that he is grieving over the loss of Juliet. This is showing the reader that even though Lord Capulet said mean things to Juliet, he might have not necessarily meant them

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Melinda`s behavior reflcets the theme because she has come to the realization that keeping her feelings bottled up will not

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Now, Melinda is starting to open up about the night of the party. Last, she stands up to Andy. While Melinda is in the closet, Andy tries to make her admit that it was her fault, but Melinda puts Andy in his place and confronts him. “I said no” (195). By standing up to Andy, Melinda shows that she completely recovered from the attack.

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Melinda is not telling people about her emotions, instead she is hiding in a closet away from her fears and

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She tries to run away from the embarrassment by leaving school, but gets caught by Mr.Neck. Mr. Neck is Melinda's history teacher that thinks Melinda has horrible behavior. This quote show a little about Melinda’s personality and how she doesn't have the courage to speak out and say what on her mind or what’s bothering her, instead, she keeps her thoughts to herself. conflict As Melinda was being bullied during the pep rally, she thinks, "I have worked 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" (54).

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Additionally, Melinda standing up to Heather and asking her mom to redecorate shows how she is speaking up and finding her voice. Finally, the motif is shown again when Melinda is stuck in the closet with Andy and she says, “No. A sound explodes from me. “NNNOOO!!!” (Anderson 194).

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You are the most depressed person I’ve ever met, and excuse me for saying this, but you are no fun to be around and I think you need professional help’” (Anderson 105). Heather directly points out Melinda’s avoidance of conflict. Melinda doesn’t bother with social activities or any of Heather’s interests, preferring to be alone.

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Mrs. Sordino’s inability to show compassion towards Melinda and how she may be feeling greatly diminishes their relationship. These interactions cause a chain reaction of broken relationships throughout the book. For Melinda, this causes distrust and unwillingness to open up. After this, every time Mrs. Sordino attempts to ask Melinda about her life, Melinda does not respond. This is most likely caused by these types of interactions throughout the book.

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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).

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Melinda is ready to share with a trusted adult how she really felt on the inside throughout this school year. Melinda has changed as a person drastically throughout the story partly because of her drawing trees. I think she has now fully recovered from the incident and is ready to grow even more. The story of Speak and Melinda Sordino shows how art can be a powerful thing.

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Do you think Benedict Arnold is a hero or a traitor?Benedict Arnold is both hero and traitor. He betrayed the patriots to join the british. He was a hero because he helped the patriots win one of the battles. The patriots were happy with him because he helped them. Then he betrayed the patriots to join the british and so the patriots got mad at him.

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Things get progressively worse for Melinda before she decides she needs to tell

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Work.) Melinda did not speak when she was at home, her parents and she communicated through notes at home, and this shows that Melinda's parents realized she wouldn’t speak, but doesn’t know why, and that was their only way of communicating with her. “Me:”I said no.” He nods. Someone is pounding on the door.

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For many people growing up in an abusive lifestyle they are more than likely to carry on the “tradition” of abusing. “ "Thief! I did not raise you a thief, but you are one when I was your age, I was away from home, working. You only steal from me." "I didn't" He hit me hard in the face, and I stumbled back onto my bed.

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She is mentally struggling, and they cannot even tell because of how much they are not home. They do not even hear her out or ask why her grades are so low. They just assume that she is being lazy and not doing her work. This is an example of miscommunication because Melinda feels trapped inside her own mind, and her parents are expecting too much from her with the mental state that she is in at this time. In the play as well as the novel, the parents and the teenager do not communicate well with each other, and this causes the teenagers to feel alone, frustrated, and

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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.

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