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Who Is The Character Of Mr. Freeman In Laurie Anderson's Speak

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One incident over night could damage someone's whole life. Also could potentially scare them for a long period of time. Melinda is a character in Laurie Anderson book. Melinda had gotten raped, which makes her not want to talk to anyone. Melinda feels as if she has no one to go to, not even her parents or friends. Mr.Freeman is a side character that helps Melinda throughout the book. He helps her become more comfortable and teachers her how to cope with what’s going on. In Laurie Anderson book “Speak” Mr. Freeman is a side character who helps Melinda find her voice. One way is in the beginning he shows her how to connect art to her feelings. In the middle, Mr.Freeman helps her by helping her compare things to others, but mainly by sitting down and talking to her so she gains his trust. In Laurie Anderson book “Speak” Melinda is the main character. Melinda goes through rough times and needs someone to help her voice. Mr. Freeman is one …show more content…

Mr. Freeman still helps her by telling her comparison to things, also by sitting down and just talking so she will gain his trust. Away he tries to have her gain his trust is by saying “Think about, love, or hale, or joy, or rage” (Anderson pg. 122). Given that Mr. Freeman is trying to help Melinda connect her feelings with her emotions deep down inside her. At the very end, Melinda had gaines Mr. Freeman’s trust. On the very last page of Speak Mr. Freeman asks her “You’ve been through a lot haven’t you?” (Anderson pg. 198). We realize that Mr.Freeman had helped Melinda find her voice and helped her build up her confidence. She could’ve been open to anyone, but she only truly trusted him. Melinda told Mr. Freeman what had happened that night and why she has called the police. This shows us that being able to be open and trust someone is a good feeling and that you may feel like you have no one to go to you really

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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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685 Words | 3 Pages

The book Speak is a book written by Laurie Halse Anderson, it is about a young girl named Melinda Sordino and is about a very serious and all too common issue: rape and depression. Rape is a serious problem, it can completely destroy a person, making them never the same again. Depression is always an uphill battle and is even worse when your friends turn their back on you and your family does not notice something is seriously wrong with you. Melinda was a young girl enjoying life until an older boy named Andy Evans took advantage of his size and raped her.

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736 Words | 3 Pages

Furthermore, Melinda had admitted that she could “[feel] the wind blow and hear the mockingbird whistling on the way back to her nest. But when [she tries] to carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a child’s drawing. [She cannot] bring it to life” (78). She wistfully imagines confessing her distress, but she remains reluctant and retreats from transitioning into speaking again. There are many moments within the novel where Anderson uses symbolism to illustrate Melinda's desire to refurbish her life as this one, but it is hard for Melinda to do so without the choice of acknowledging what happened.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

Also, the closet her “safe place” she always used to hide what happened at the party from everyone else becomes a dangerous place. “It”, also known as Andy Evans the boy who rapes her at the party breaks into the closet and tries to sexually assault her again. Melinda realizes she can't let this happen again and therefore fights back with everything she has. She realizes that her closet is not safe anymore and that she can't hide from her trauma. And that she can't hide from this problem, and she needs to stand up and speak to the problem.

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1125 Words | 5 Pages

This causes her to be unable to speak as normal and express herself only through self physical acts of hurting herself. However, through her pain, she begins to grow from a victim to a survivor and understands that the only way to go against evil is to speak out against it. Melinda in Speak is a high school freshman who is raped by Andy Evans who is a senior in high school. Due to him raping her she loses her ability to speak normally and say what she feels and how she feels. Melinda gains her confidence to speak in public freely again by the end of the story.

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1903 Words | 8 Pages

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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755 Words | 4 Pages

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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924 Words | 4 Pages

The new Melinda sees that she needs to say something and she works up the courage to help her once-friend. This really shows Melinda development as a person. She is overcoming her pain and

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887 Words | 4 Pages

At the end of the book, Melinda was able to speak out on what happened to her and change her outlook on life and the way she coped with her trauma. Speak is a favorable book because many people who have gone through similar

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620 Words | 3 Pages

This chapter ends with David being allowed to record what goes on in class practically beating Mr. Neck, and Melinda calls David her hero. Melinda began to feel inspired by what David had done as his act of standing up to Mr. Neck reminded Melinda of her struggle of not being able to speak up about what happened to her. David showed her that speaking up can change things and that people will get what they deserve. Moreover, the chapter “Wishbone” shows that Melinda feels stuck or trapped in the same place. She has so much more to her than she lets on, but it’s all hidden inside because she can’t get herself to speak, it also reveals that she is in a lot of pain.

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641 Words | 3 Pages

Everyone in the world needs somebody who loves them and someone cares for them. Teenagers tend to not notice relationships they can build with family members, Classmates and others. The novel Speak shows how those relationships can impact teenagers decisions and thoughts. Melinda Sordino experience helps readers understand people's perspectives negative or positive on how develop feelings through relationships. In this novel there are multiple individuals such as David, Mr.Freeman and Mrs. Sordino who all play apart in Melinda's thought and decisions.

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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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655 Words | 3 Pages

Mr. Freeman was the man who convinced her to stop running away from the past. He told her to just express all of her emotions to free herself from the tragic past that she had to go through. For example, Melinda had found a way to express herself in a very artistic like manner. She had drawn a tree that had an immense amount of symbolism to

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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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1197 Words | 5 Pages

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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