Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson: A Character Analysis

Speak is a cleaver and an ironic title for a story in which the main character chooses not to speak. The story is written in first-person narration from the point of view of protagonist, Melinda Sordino. Speak is written like an interior monologue in the mind of an introverted teenage girl, like excerpts from her personal diary during her miserable freshman year of high school. Instead of blending in and finding her way through high school. She withdraws and secludes herself from the other students. She calls herself an "outcast." Melinda is so desperate to hide from the world; she turns an old janitor's closet at the high school into her safe haven. She cuts classes to hide in her closet. How lonely could this teenage girl be? All

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

Speaking out is a tough task for many people that have dealt with horrible, traumatic situations. In the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character, Melinda, is one of those people who lost their voice. To be able to understand another person’s emotions, feelings, and situations is very difficult to do, especially because of how our society has formed and became a very judgmental place. Melinda Sordino starts her freshman year at Merryweather High School in Syracuse, New York, to a terrible start; she is a victim of a sexual assault and loses her confidents and voice to speak out. The more she interacts and makes new friends is how she starts to reach out and become more self-sufficient. Few weeks into school Melinda’s only

One of MElinda’s ex-friends starts dating the guy who raped her. She sent anonymous letters trying to make her stay away from him. That proves she has grown, and she doesn’t want others to suffer because of him like she did. “I dig my fingers into the dirt and squeeze. A small clean part of me waits to warm and burst through the surface. Some quiet Melinda girl I haven’t seen in months. That is the seed I will care for,” (chapter 86, page 188-189). Melinda is facing her fears. She went to the place where it all happened. She wanted to have peace. She was ready to move on from the situation. The bottle was now open, and her feelings were flying

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.

In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the author does something out of place or that the character wouldn’t do and it brings the book to a whole other level. The main character is Melinda and she has a hard time in highschool. She doesn’t have any friends and most of her teachers don’t like her. Also her and her parents don’t really talk to each other. They don’t have a connection with her like some parents have with their kids. So just from this you can kind of tell that Melinda of has no hope inside of her.

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, features a fourteen year old girl named Melinda Sordino who lives in Syracuse, New York. The novel takes place close to present day, with the book being written in 1999, which is when the novel was written. Melinda comes from a middle class background and her parents are blue collar workers. Her mother works at a department store at the local mall while her father works in an office building. Both of her parents spend a lot of time at work and Melinda is an only child, which means she spends most of her time alone. The story begins with Melinda entering high school in her freshman year. The summer after eighth grade, Melinda and her friends attended a high school party. At the party, Melinda is assaulted

Melinda Sordino is a typical teenage girl with a not so typical life. Melinda is the main character in the novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. This novel is about a young girl who calls the cops at the summer party thrown before her freshman year. At this party she was raped by Andy Evans, the dreamy boy who is wanted by every girl in school. As school finally begins, Melinda is left friendless and alone. She goes through extreme problems, such as: bullying, self harm, skipping school, failing grades, thoughts of her rape, and the loss of her best friend, Rachel. While she is going through all of theses issues she is assigned an art project that lasts all year. Melinda’s task was to take the word ‘tree’ and sculpt it into something of magic. At first, Melinda is annoyed by the project,

Every single person has a secret or an experience that they prefer not to talk about. In this case, Melinda Sordino suffers with the traumatic memory of rape. Within the novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Sordino’s entire life changes as Andy Evans takes advantage of her innocence by raping her during a party in August. As a result, Sordino’s trauma causes the alteration of her personality and perspective of the world. Sordino ventures throughout the story to rediscover herself as a person and faces several obstacles such as family troubles, disrespectful peers, and the person who has inflicted her with the most mental agony she can possibly withstand.

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

William F. Halsey explains, "All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them." This shows that facing a difficulty face to face will help it go away. In Speak, mute Melinda was unable to overcome her struggle since she attempted to “dodge” the truth. However, when Melinda finally spoke out about what happened to her, she immediately felt better about the struggle she was dealing with. The main theme of the novel and ancillary texts is overcoming obstacles. This theme is expressed through the conflict, symbolism, and foreshadowing throughout the texts. Laurie Halse Anderson’s use of literary elements in Speak, as well as the devices in the article, “The Art of Resilience” and the poem “If” help the common theme of overcoming obstacles throughout a time of growth and change evolve throughout the story.

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

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.

Hook Background-TITLE, Author In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Anderson talks about a girl named Melinda and all those around her. Anderson constantly underlines areas where the characters in the book disregard events happening in the environment around them. Thesis

Constantly stated, is the idea that high school is one of the best times of life. Parties, friends, and endless days of fun is the American stereotype. These dreams dissipate, though, if you start freshman year with a record of zero friends. In the young adolescent novel titled Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, the reader encounters the feeling to lack the most powerful tool ever given to you: the tool of words. Melinda’s endeavor commence after an end of summer senior party, where she was cruelly raped. Rather than sharing her pain with the world, and achieving justice, she chose to keep her secret locked up, because she did not know how to reveal it. Speaking out would have dramatically changed her life for the better. The main theme