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What Is The Significance Of The Closets In Speak

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In the book, Speak, we see the author Laurie Halse Anderson intentionally use symbols to portray the way the main character is feeling. The first-person perspective of the book allows us to understand inner thoughts and feelings of Melinda, this is where many of the symbols come from. I decided to do a visual representation of the closets in Speak to take a deep dive into the different aspects of the book that lead to a rollercoaster of emotions. The closets in the book act as a safe haven for Melinda. The escape from reality is that she needs to be together with her thoughts, “The best place to figure this out is my closet, my throne room, my foster home”(150). This acts as a harmful and helpful thing for Melinda in the sense that …show more content…

The first thing inside the closet is the broken mirror. When first going into the janitor's closet she sees that the mirror is bolted to the wall, so she chooses to cover it up. The mirror acts as a reminder that she let what happened happen. It makes her look in the mirror at what she has also turned herself into, “The first thing to go is the mirror. It is screwed to the wall, so I cover it with a power of Maya Angelous that the librarian gave me”(50). Later in the book, the mirror was broken, this symbolizes Melinda being mentally broken and not being able to find her true self in her reflection in the mirror. Later the broken mirror acted as revenge against Andy and symbolized the change in character she had from the beginning of the book from being a victim to a survivor, “It wasn’t my fault. He hurt me. It wasn’t my fault. And I'm not going to let it kill me. I can grow'' (198). Another thing I added was the paperclips she's used to hurting herself in the closet. The paperclips made her feel something that wasn’t mentally painful, “If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep?”(87). This was a turning point in the book because it showed the readers that she wanted to be her old self and not hurt herself but she didn’t know how. The paperclips acted as a guard against the rest of the world, she decided to hurt herself before anybody

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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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In the novel, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the chapter prey shows that the main character, Melinda, learns from her mistake and stands up against her worst nightmare, Andy Evans. After algebra class, Melinda goes to her closet and grabs her Maya Angelou poster. After Melinda is finished grabbing her things from her closet, Andy Evans pushes Melinda back into her closet, “somebody slams into my chest back into the closet. The lights flicks and the door closes. I am trapped with Andy Evans” (193).

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It is evident Melinda experiences a more arduous

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This finally shows how much Melinda has grown and how much she has found her voice. Melinda's growth is demonstrated through her finally being able to say no to Andy unlike the first time, and Melinda saying no shows how she was able to find her voice. Melinda's growth and escape from depression is expressed at the end of the

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[...] My lip bleeds a little.”. Her former best friend Rachel or rather Rachelle mouths to Melinda “I hate you”. To bring the pain away from her mind she brings pain to her body. To forget all the things Rachel did, “IT” did. Everytime something triggers her or brings her to the past she resorts to self harm or self degradation.

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In the novel, Anderson’s Speak, there is a multitude of symbolism examples. A crucial example is how she avoided mirrors as much as she could. The mirror symbolizes how Melinda disgusts herself as if it were her fault she had been hurt. She used the mirror as a weapon towards Andy which symbolizes how she regained control of her emotions. Anderson uses the mirror to symbolize how Melinda disgusts herself and how she used it to regain her confidence.

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

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The damage caused by her experiences at the party left her feeling broken and hopeless, and is the cause of her depression. Secondly, as the diseased branches on the large tree in Melinda’s yard are being cut down her father states that “by cutting off the damage, you can make it possible for the tree to grow again,” and that it will eventually be “the strongest on the block” (Anderson 187). The tree represents Melinda, and the diseased branches represent the damage that was left behind from the incident during the party. She refuses to talk about what happened, and due to that, it’s slowly dragging her even deeper into depression, however, if she would open up and talk about it she would have the ability to pull herself out.

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Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson uses literary devices to help the reader better understand Melinda’s personal changes and growth. Trees, lips, and coldness are all symbolically used to represent the changes of Melinda. Throughout the novel, trees play a big part in symbolizing Melinda. Melinda is constantly drawing and relating to trees in the book.

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To try to forget and move on from being raped, she needed to avoid looking at herself and seeing the person she has become. Ever since Melinda was raped, she has been frustrated with herself and has not been able to face her reflection. This shows that she could not face her feelings. Melinda’s coping strategy was to avoid others and avoid herself. The mirror is a symbol for her emotional struggles and that she cannot deal with them.

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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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The mirror in “The Lady of Shalott”, kind of represents our own perspective. Just like the lady, throughout our lives, we only see little bits of the world by what we are exposed to. For example, if you were to grow up in a family who only believed in one religion, you yourself would only see that one perspective of that religion. Until you discover that there is other beliefs and viewpoints, you do start to question unanswerable questions. It’s like you learn that there is so much more to the world around you.

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Symbolism can use an object (like a tree of birds), or art, (like Melinda’s art project or Mr. Freeman's canvas) to represent an abstract idea. Laurie Halse Anderson uses symbolism to hint at a certain mood or emotion, rather than just blatantly saying it. So, the use of symbolism is important because it helps create meaning and emotion in a story. Symbolism makes a book fun to read, the symbolism produces a thought provoking work of art and it, (like in this book), adds meaning to seemingly unrelated objects and elicits emotions in the

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The shattered mirror continues to be an important symbol in this novel and serves to tie the book further with the myth of Narcissus. After Oedipa’s affair with Metzger, “things grew less and less clear…she went into the bathroom, tried to find her image in the mirror and couldn 't. She had a moment of nearly pure terror (Pynchon 33).” Like Narcissus and the pool of water the mirror serves Oedipa in a similar fashion, it reflects the woman that society has shaped her to be but the shattering of the mirror shows an end of that. The mirror earlier in the novel served as a narcissistic connection to Oedipa’s old self who was okay with the lot in life that she had been dealt, but the breaking of the mirror symbolizes the break of the hold on her

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For instance, there is an understanding of the woman’s feelings as she describes “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” and the pattern looking at her “as if it knew what a vicious influence it had” (Gilman 437). The personification is symbolic in displaying how the woman felt as she was stuck in the lonely room with allowance of her husband and Jennie, their child’s nanny, keeping their eyes on her with the dependence of her healing. Additionally, the woman specifies that behind the yellow wallpaper she can see “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman 438). As the appearance of the wallpaper is personified, the author taps into the hidden meaning that the woman’s sickness is taunting her as she is attempting to heal. In the end, readers are given the most significant piece of personification in the statement, “and then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared that I would finish it today!”

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