Speak Laurie Halse Anderson Character Analysis

Ironically, the person Melinda finds as the outlet to help her express her feelings is her art teacher, Mr. Freeman. In a class assignment, Melinda is assigned to create an art project based on a tree. She begins to express her inner angst through this art project. At one point, she uses dried bones to sculpt a picture of a skeleton. Then she glues broken knives and forks to the project so that the bones look like the plastic utensils are stabbing them. It is a grim depiction of how Melinda feels, and is immediately praised by Mr. Freeman.

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

When Melinda draws for her art class she has to draw trees and the trees represent her life and how she feels. When Melinda was drawing the trees she said “ But when I try and carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a childs drawing, I can’t bring it to life. I would love to give it up, quit, but i can't think of anything else to do so i keep chipping away at it.” (pg.78) As she draws the trees she realizes that they can represent her and her life. The trees are dead looking with branches, thats how Melinda feels she feels like nobody cares and nobody is there for her. Melinda does not know who she wants to be and throughout the novel she will figure it out. High School helps Melinda know who she wants to

The book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, tells the story of high-school freshman, Melinda Sordino. After busting an end-of-summer party, she’s taunted and teased by her peers because she won’t give reason as to why she called the police. She soon slips into depression and starts her freshman year off in “all the wrong ways.” Melinda needed help. Help with confidence. Help with her mentality. Help in general. Throughout the book, very few characters try to help Melinda but one character in particular stands out. Mr. Freeman.

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

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

Everyone grows physically. A person can be 4’ll”, and a couple years later they are 5’3”, Physical change is not a big deal. When someone grows as a person or emotionally it can go both ways, You either emotionally grow in a negative or positive way. The person can either become a better person, or grow with more flaws and bad habits. Speak was written by Laurie Halse Anderson, published on October 22, 1999. The story shows the character development of the main character, Melinda Sordino. Although teenagers go through emotional growth because their maturity levels are increasing, Melinda goes through a rough situation that helps her grow as a person.

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’s paintings of trees are symbols in Speak. Her artwork describes how she feels. After the awful pep rally, all of her art is dull. She thinks to herself, “For a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning. I try to paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally” (Anderson 30-31). The phrase “hit by lightning” implies that Melinda is injured. There is a slim chance of surviving a lightning strike, suggesting that Melinda does not feel alive. That feeling is further explored in “nearly dead, but not totally,” where Melinda shows that there is still a little bit of life left in her. This quotation symbolizes the point when Melinda is still in pain from the attack, but even though she may not realize it yet, she

“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

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

In this section (quote) of the book, Melinda receives her year long art project and that project is to draw, sculpt, paper mache, and carve out a Tree. " I plunge my hand into the bottom of the globe and fish out my paper. "Tree." Tree?' (12). This quote relates to Melinda's character traits because the "tree" is a symbol that shows her emotions that go on from this point and throughout the rest of the book.

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.

Finally, Melinda undoes the stitches which sealed her lips for so long and learns to express herself and her feelings with the guidance and friendship. In sum, Laure Halse Anderson’s Speak uses various conflicts to prove the necessity of friendship and support to grow past trauma. Over the course of her grade

The tree in Speak symbolizes Melinda’s emotional state when at first she finds no meaning in drawing the tree then she finds the courage to speak up about her rape experience. As Melinda is starting her artistic path, Mr. Freeman says his opinion on her artwork and she develops an understanding that her art work could compare to her life.