Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda, the main character of speak was raped at a summer party. She calls the cops and that is where it all started. When Melinda reaches high school she is faced with all her old friends. They all hate her and want nothing to do with her, because of her calling the cops. Throughout the whole book Melinda runs into tough situations that eventually lead to her standing up for herself. Eventually, everyone finds out the truth, of why Melinda calls the cops. Although Melinda learns to stand up for herself, throughout the book she shows signs of depression such as poor performance in school, sadness and hopelessness, and withdrawal of friends and activities.

Everyone has hardships that they come across, but what really matters is the way they overcome them. In the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda Sordino does not try to face her hardships, she wants her problems to just disappear, but what makes her different is that she learns that saying nothing will just make her problems worse. The author characterized Melinda as very brave, although it took time for her to accept her problems. Melinda tries to admit what happened to her, deal with the bullies in her school, and tries to help her ex-best friend, Rachel to see with whom she is dealing with.

Within “SPEAK,” Laurie Halse Anderson uses Melinda’s artwork to express Melinda. At the Beginning of the story Melinda gets a year long art project to draw a tree. At the beginning, she struggles because she is still feeling pain and depression from getting raped. But, Throughout the story, she slowly grows and comes out of her “shell,” and becomes better and better with it; So by the

Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, portrays the struggles of high school through the eyes of freshman Melinda Sordino, as she makes her way through cliques and clubs after she being raped at a party by an upperclassman. Anderson discusses many topics throughout the novel, including fear from the past and loneliness. Laurie Halse Anderson uses metaphors and mood to illustrate the idea that past experiences can cause overpowering fear that affects our behavior and attitude in the present. Laurie Halse Anderson uses metaphors to illustrate Firstly, Laurie Halse Anderson uses metaphors to show how Melinda’s fear from the past affects her in the present. She uses these metaphors many times throughout the book, showing how Melinda’s fear

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a coming of age themed fictional Novel based around Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High School. During her days at school Melinda found trouble fitting in and speaking because of an incident that happened at a summer party. That incident being that she was raped by a senior named Andy Evans, aka, “IT.” At the time, Melinda panicked and ended up calling the police, which resulted in everyone despising her. Similarly to “high school drama,” the author illustrated gossip and the effects it can have on a person. To compare, when the news hit Melinda, she became silent and isolated staying away from any old friends she glanced upon. Fortunately, Melinda found new hope when a stranger asked, “I’m Heather

“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

Numerous teenagers notice the beginning of high school to be a difficult as they encounter a new obstacle, when walking into a new atmosphere it is common to lose one’s confidence not knowing what lies ahead. Mixed emotions are dealt from a freshman, Melinda Sordino, as she struggles to develop due to no growth and lack of confidence Unable to face her experiences and seek for help from others, in the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The text uses Similes to display how Melinda is feeling where she passively lacks confidence due to her trauma. The use of metaphors is to describe Melinda’s fear of facing the truth towards her suffering. Finally, the value of symbolism explains how she is dealing with her trauma by observing her trauma towards

Melinda showed a lot of courage in this book. She was put in a lot of new situations, that required her to make some hard decisions. Such as when she is told that she needs to read her suffragette report in front of the class. She could've just easily read her paper in front of the class but instead she wrote her essay on the board. Then Melinda says, “The suffragettes fought for the right to speak.

She is not trying to make any progress and is talking about herself. Overall, Melinda’s tree represents her, not herself, because she’s describing how she looks and feels. In the middle of the novel, Melinda starts to realize she needs help. She’s trying to get better and not dwell on past events. In the middle, Melinda states “I tune out and focus on my doodle, a pine tree.

In the novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino is the 14 year old girl who was raped at an end-of-summer party. She finds herself struggling with her life and adjusting to what had happened. Melinda trudges through her freshman year of high school, being constantly reminded of the unspeakable experience. The only thing that gets her through her days, is art. Art gives Melinda the ability to grow mentally and physically stronger, allowing her to open up about her incident, accept what had happened, and confront who she is afraid of most.

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, a freshman named Melinda must learn the key to recovery after enduring extreme trauma. She struggled to find someone to speak to, due to the school shunning her for calling the police at the party. Throughout Speak, Melinda seeks to recover from the trauma she experienced, especially the cruel actions from her ex-friends. Through symbolism, Laurie Halse Anderson displays the theme in Melinda's perspective.

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

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although

The book Speak by Laurie Anderson is a book about how Melinda Sordino overcomes the troubles in her life, and how she learned to speak up for herself. The author uses a lot of archetypes and allusions throughout the book to add a fuller description to the events Melinda had gone through, which will help the readers to better understand what Anderson is trying to tell.

“After a traumatic experience, the human system of self preservation seems to go into permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment” (Judith Lewis Herman). The psychoanalyst Lewis Herman describes how encountering agonizing pain causes individuals to become more cautious as a result. The psychoanalytic lens is based on Freudian theories and asserts that “ people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious:...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desire, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15) High schools a place where tragedy are brought upon people, but their voices aren’t heard. Melinda, a high school freshman, is the protagonist in Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, Speak.