Most Important Themes In The Novel Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

We all have opportunities to display courage in our life, but if we actually do is our decision. Courage is being able to do what is right even if it can be hard. In the book Speak by Laurie Halle Anderson I found three different examples of courage. In this book Melinda Sordino, David Petrakis and Melinda, again all show courage.

Throughout the story, Melinda shows many signs of depression. Teens will often display changes in their thinking and behavior, lose their motivation, or become withdrawn. Psych Info Online presented some signs of depression that Melinda experienced in the novel. The signs Melinda indicated include: sadness, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, withdrawal from friends, decreased interest of activities, social isolation, poor communication, low self-esteem, guilt, and

Have you ever drawn a picture to express something, or just drawn it for fun? Well Melinda uses her drawings to express her feelings and get away from the world. I think the in the story “SPEAK,” by Laurie Halse Anderson, She uses Melinda's artwork and the tree to express the fact that Melinda got raped and afterwards, when she looked up... and saw... a tree.

In Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about a teenage girl named Melinda, who is miserable in life. Melinda goes to a party, gets drunk and is sexaully assaulted by a older student. In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson employs the closet as a symbol in order to create deeper meaning.

The novel Speak by Laurie Hales Anderson shows Melinda Sordino struggling through the year, and her recovery from the painful memory of getting raped at the party in summer break. In the beginning of the story, the story shows how bad Melinda feels and then she changes and starts growing and at the final stage of the story Melinda becomes a strong hard oaktree-like person. In the book Speak, the author symbolizes the tree to show Melinda’s change from being an outcast to being an accepted person; this also supports the theme: time can help heal one’s painful memories.In the beginning of the year, her trees looked like trees that existed nowhere on earth, but by the end of the year, her trees were breathing and looked as if they had shot up

The days are suddenly shorter, and chirpy colors have faded to darker shades without notice. Trees begin to lose their leaves, and they helplessly detach from their branches and plummet to the cold ground. This season is not anything like the previous season, like Melinda is no longer the happy-go-lucky child she was. Similar to a leaf that has been dropped and forgotten, everyone has renounced a Melinda growing isolated and withdrawn. Anderson writes, “Her [Rachel’s] eyes meet mine for a second. ‘I hate you,’ she mouths silently. She turns her back on me and laughs with her friends” (Anderson 5). Rachel does not bother to interrogate Melinda on why she called the authorities or stick up for her, which displays how Melinda’s supposed best friend does not truly care about her. This action lays the foundation of betrayal has causes Melinda feel alone and abandoned. It is later revealed through her thoughts that this is exactly what she believes, that “all that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say” (Anderson 9). This dreary kind of thinking adds onto the notion that Melinda has to deal with her troubles all on her

In the book“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character is “Melinda Sordino who is a freshmen in highschool that is having tough times fitting in after she called the cops on a party she was in and now almost everyone hates her, but then along the way she finds some friends who help her out. The message of this story is that no matter what you do you can always come through and defeat your fears of high school.

60% of Americans know a survivor of Domestic Abuse or Sexual Assault. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, tells the story of the summer before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino meets Andy Evans at a senior party. She starts high school at Merryweather High School as an outcast since all her old friends left her, and is shunned by her peers for calling the police. She declines to tell anybody the occasions that took place. The symbol “mouth” represents Melinda is conservative about what happens in her life. The symbol “mouth” represents Melinda being conservative about what happens in her life because she is afraid and has no one to talk to, she is traumatized by the things that have previously affected her, and Melinda also stops

Andy found her closet and he went to visit her on one of the last days of school. “No. a sound explodes from me. NNNOOO!!!”(194). Andy tried once more to rape her. Melinda wouldn’t let him overwhelm her. Melinda said no, as she started to speak again to more people she said no to the one person she hated most. If melinda had not made noise and broken the glass he might have done it again. She finally got the courage to fight and stand up to Andy. Melinda may have let him rape her again but talking to Rachel increased melindas courage to stand up to Andy and others in the

In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson there are many examples of symbolism. Symbolism is a symbolic meaning attributed to natural objects or facts. Melinda in the book had her tree and that showed how she felt and the seasons changing showed how she was changing as a person. There was also the Maya Angelou poster she put up in the closet in school.

In the book Speak Laurie Halse Anderson is saying that in our daily lives friends are great to have, but you can’t depend on them always being there for you. Such as when Laurie Halse Anderson wrote about Melinda and her new friend Heather. Heather was fun at first but then backed stabbed Melinda later. Laurie Anderson wrote about Melinda’s friends leaving her after Melinda called the cops at the party because she was raped. Her friends didn’t bother asking why she did, they just stopped talking to her. Laurie Halse Anderson wrote about Melinda hiding and not opening up to anyone. Now this was where I was saying that Laurie Anderson was writing about it’s good to have a friends around. If Melinda had just one friend to talk to she wouldn’t

Three and a half year ago, the car crash inflicted by the influence of alcohol left the driver, Elle White mentally disturbed. The author explains, Elle White suffers nightmares about the incident. She starts to remember memories of her and Karen, when she confesses, “I still have nightmares about the accident. I wake up in the middle of the night screaming about ambulance sirens and screams” (Hollander 1). She is unable to sleep as the accident haunts her. This clearly shows she is mentally stressed as she is unable to forget the traumatic accident. Similarly, she encounters flashbacks of the night of the accident. For instance, “I tilt back in my chair and sob into my hands as it all comes flooding back” (Hollander 2). Her flashbacks do not allow her to move on from the incident taking a toll on her brain. In regards to all these facts, she is dealing with depression as the vivid images enter her mind once again troubling her. Furthermore, she hallucinates about Karen, who is not present. Elle White tries to forget about Karen, however she describes, “Then, suddenly I can hear her soft, caring voice in my ear. “You can remember” she whispers, and there is so much ferocity in her tone I back away” (Hollander 2). This visual representation can be viewed as a reminder of her regret, to listen to Karen’s plead to drive drunk that resulted in losing Karen. This leaves Elle White to be guilty for that accident, deteriorating her mental stability. Therefore, the author adopts the sensitivity of Elle White’s mental condition after living through the

What would you do if the person you care the most about was suffering from depression? In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the narrator, Melinda Sordino suffers from depression and insecurity after being molested by a senior, Andy Evans. Over time, her emotions change positively. In her art class, she was assigned trees as her project to express emotion. In this novel, trees speak for her because they represent life, Melinda’s growth, and being unable to speak.

A trait that stands out in the book is the symptom of bodily memories. In Melinda’s case, during a frog dissection in her science class, she remembers the opening up and even says, “She doesn’t say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut – I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, feel the leaves in my hair.” (81). One of the other symptoms that Melinda has is self-harm. The first time that this is shown in the book, Melinda says this, “I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep?” (87). Melinda also has a hard time talking to her parents about the rape to which she says, “How can I talk to them about that night? How can I start?” (72). Some victims recover from such a traumatic experience, while others don’t and live a lifetime of depression and must undergo intense therapy. In Melinda’s case, she finds redemption by talking to her parents and the guidance counselor, and putting her faith into her teachers, friends, and her art project at school. Because rape can affect anybody anywhere, everyone should be aware of the circumstances, and how to deal with it.

A dysfunctional family is defined as a family in which conflict, misconduct, and often the disregard of a child takes place. In Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Speak, the main character, Melinda, struggles with her own dysfunctional family issues and the influence it has on her decision to speak out about her rape. Melinda is uncertain of the reaction her parents may have if she did tell them, as well as how they may become involved in her personal life. Because of this, she rejects the idea of speaking to them entirely. Melinda’s dysfunctional family issues and failing relationship with her parents prevent the slight chance of Melinda speaking up.