How Does Life Shape Melinda's Identity

In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda a young incoming freashman starts off high school depressed and avoided by her classmates and friends. Over the summer Melinda attends a party where she has no choice but to call the police, resulting in all her friends to dismiss and turn against her completely including her best friend Rachel. When Melinda begins high school detached from all of her classmates she tries to befriend Heather, a new student who is unaware of the party conflict. “...we kind of paired up at the beginging of the year when I was new and didnt know anyone and that was really sweet of you but I think its time for the both of us to admit that we...just...are...very...differnt” (105 Anderson) Heather soon realizes

Just before she entered high school, Melinda was smart and on the verge of popularity. She was a straight B student and had a group of close, reliable friends, but her life changed

The following week, Melinda decides she is ready to move out of her janitor's closet. She no longer feels like hiding. While cleaning it out, however, Andy enters and locks her in the room with him. Angry that she talked to Rachel, Andy attempts to rape Melinda a second time. This time, however, Melinda screams and fights back. The lacrosse team hears Melinda's cries and rescues her from Andy. By the next day, everyone knows Andy and Melinda's history. Melinda's popularity

Melinda realizes that she has much more potential, places the past behind her, and begins to speak once more. Anderson's novel explores common teenage problems such as depression; Melinda exhibits external signs like cutting her wrist with a paperclip and biting her lip,

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache,” (Anderson 3). These are Melinda Sordino's first thoughts as she enters her first year of high school. Melinda dreads having to be around so many people and is shunned by other students for calling the police at a summer party. She falls into depression and decides to stay silent about what happened. As the school year goes on, Melinda knows that she will have to face her biggest fear: to speak. Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak, uses numerous archetypes and allusions to put a powerful impact on readers. These archetypes and allusions make Melinda’s struggles relatable to real life problems and situations and reflect universal

Melinda's a troubled high schooler who has had difficulties fitting into her freshman class. She is also having trouble finding her identity due to some unfortunate events during the summer. In Laurie Halse Anderson's novel, speak, Melinda the main character is assigned an art project. She is asked to study drawing and research trees throughout the year. Melinda takes this project very seriously, her artwork is the only ways she communicates her emotions to the outside world.

Without an identity, Melinda will not be confident enough to face her trauma. In addition to the high school is all about finding who is a one is. Therefore, Melinda is searching for who she may be and what is her true self, in comparison as to the school board in search of their official mascot. As well as in art class Melinda was working on her art project when Mr. Freeman takes note of her creativity. Melinda focuses on her artwork as she decides to add a unique barbie head

Throughout the book, Melinda goes through many different phases. In the “First Marking Period,” she is on the verge of a psychological death, but in the “Second Marking Period,” she knows what she wants to do, but can not complete it. In the “Third Marking Period,” she begins taking risks, and in the “Fourth Marking Period,” she conquers her fears and creates a beautiful tree. Many people can relate to what Melinda has gone through in high school, in fact we all face the same challenges she did. Upon entering high school, all people are forced to reconsider their friends, and are tasked with the difficult challenge of discovering

Melinda was an outcast and loner in high school who was overwhelmed, fearful, and confused with her life and her environment at school. She was always silent in class and afraid to speak in front of people. Many students today might feel the need to fit in with other people so they wouldn’t have to be looked down upon. As we take a look at Melinda’s life we’ll be able to see how she handles her daily conflicts. In the book, Speak, Melinda Sordino, an incoming freshman at Merryweather High, starts her year off with a terrible start. She’s stuck with a mean history teacher, by who she calls Mr. Neck and a whole bunch of other weird teachers like her English teacher of who she calls, Hairwomen, because of her crazy, uncombed

Melinda Sordino, the narrator in the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, walks the reader through her freshman year of high school. As the novel starts, the reader knows that everyone is mad at her for an unknown reason, but the reader soon learns that she had called the police during a summer party that she and her friends had gone to. Of course, as there were many high schoolers at the party, peers and her former friends ignored her throughout the beginning of the school year, yet she had a pseudo-friendship named Heather who focuses on gaining popularity- something Melinda has the least interest in.

Humans need social interaction to flourish and they tend to select a few people to become closest with. They share secrets, gossip about others, and support each other in times of need, but how well can someone really know another person? In Nineteen Minutes the reader watches Josie Cormier get ready for school, hiding her private personality away for the day. “Either Josie was someone she didn’t want to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted” (Picoult 8). To all of Josie‘s classmates, friends, teachers, and even her own mother she seems like the perfect child. Josie hangs out with the right crowd, gets great grades, and follows all of society's rules perfectly, but no one really knows who she is. Behind the mask perfection Josie is just another teenager struggling with depression and identity issues. The author chooses to make the most popular girl in school also one of the most depressed to show that although things may seem beautiful on the outside, they can be rotting from the inside. Picoult is proving how that easy it is for people to hide their personalities to the world.

This quote show that Melinda is an outcast, “ I have no friends. I have nothing to say. I say nothing" (Anderson 116). This quote shows that Melinda is insecure because, while Melinda is in the guidance counselor's office, her counselor is telling her that she’s been failing her classes and Melinda feels insecure. She feels out of place in the environment. Melinda is self-conscious that she feels she has to try to be pretty in order to gain her popularity back. Since Melinda has lost some friends coming into high school, she’s been feeling down on herself and depressed. Also, Melinda shows that she is insecure by saying, “ I am an outcast “( 8 Anderson). This proves that Melinda is insecure because before the start of High School Melinda was a very popular girl which is now an outcast. Until things went wrong for Melinda and she called the cops. Melinda had called the cops because she had been raped when she was drunk, so her first response was to call the cops. The cops had shown up, making everyone leave the party because of underage drinking and everyone knows Melinda has called the cops. Since that has happened she feels insecure by being an outcast. Because of this Melinda no longer is popular nor has no friends. Melinda feels she is insecure because she’s an outcast and has no friends which these feelings lead

Metaphors in ‘Speak’ show that Melinda’s past peers unintentionally destroy her self-respect, resulting in a feeling of dread engulfing Melinda, her. Thus, Some individuals tend to jump to conclusions without thinking about others .On her first day of high school, the entire ninth grade population holds a grudge against Melinda for calling the cops at a summer party without knowing it was because she was raped. During her lunchtime, Melinda “stand[s] in the centre aisle of the auditorium” as if she is “a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone, to sit next to.” (Anderson 5). Melinda, standing surrounded with hundreds of people, yet still alone, shows that she has no support from anyone. Melinda is hurt so strongly by others rude attitude towards her to the point she feels as if she has been physically wounded, even hunted, by the students from her school. Melinda is seen as if she betrayed her peers by calling the police, lowering her certainty along with her self-esteem, which interrupts her mental ageing process. She is instantly blamed which results in a lack of support, as well as company to start high school. In addition, Melinda views herself as a broken girl who cannot figure out her own life. One night, she is forced to go shopping for new clothes with her mother. In the change room, Melinda carefully studies herself in the mirror. Her self- belief is too low,

identity is a huge factor in someone's life , it has a powerful impact on an individual. Two factors that shape Melinda's identity is past experiences and friends. Melinda was not responsible at end of the summer party and things went for a turn. After calling the cops , all of her friends refuse talk to her . This has definitely affected melinda's identity.

Callie Norman was just a normal teenage girl living in a big, livey city that never sleeps, New York City. She loves the bright city because it matches her personality, an outgoing girl with wavy, silky blond hair that comes down to her shoulders and a very unusual wardrobe. Callie loves anything bright, nothing dull, so that’s why she hated where she moved to, Rosewood, PA. Ever since she moved to Pennsylvania, she hasn’t been herself. Her parents think it’s because of her new high school. Every evening that Callie comes home from school, she is always in a devastated mood and almost never smiles for the rest of the night. Jonah and Michelle, Callie’s parents, think she is getting bullied in some way and they want to talk to the principle