As the book, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, progresses from start to finish, the actions of the characters really help the reader to understand how each character acts in certain uncomfortable situations that are experienced during the book. In these situations, the characters start to show how they feel around others. It shows how they feel comfortable or completely uncomfortable around other people. Each character has their own little twist to how they feel about things that are happening in school and in their own personal lives. The development of these characters help us realize the fears they face on a daily basis. To start with, the protagonist of the book, Melinda, is experiencing multiple difficult times in her life like her parents relationship is falling apart, recovering from the rape, and loneliness. Melinda has isolated herself from everyone else for so long, but also since everybody thinks she busted the party, they don’t want to have anything to do with her. As her peers at school bully her by blurting things out at her while she has a perfectly good reason why she called the police, she is afraid to stand up for herself. At the party, she was raped by Andy and didn’t know what to do after it happened, so she called the police in shock. After the incident, Melinda gets really …show more content…
She was afraid to commit to things. She couldn’t decide which club to join with Heather, what to make in art class, and she wouldn’t commit to doing any other homework besides for art. When she gained Heather as a friend, she wouldn’t want to hang out with her at first. Then, as time went on, she started to hang out with her, but still kept her distance. This got Heather aggrivated with her, and Heather ended up lashing out on her. They weren’t friends for a while, and when Heather wanted to be friends with her Melinda had a hard time committing back into that