Symbolism In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

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

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 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

Laurie Halse Anderosn has written a book which is considered as a trauma novel “speak”. Usually anger is a phase that begins with madness and ends with regret, but in this book anger will be tackled in different way, Melinda’s anger starts with silence and ends with speaking. In other words it’s starts with fear and ends with triumph over self. Over the course of the novel silence struggling with anger is leading to speak. Anderson incorporated all themes in anger direction with different techniques such as flashback, allusion, symbolism, and fragmentation.

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

Although in the story Melinda is scared to speak and open up about her harsh secrets, at the end she opens up and shows that a person needs to be strong and fight for their rights. Melinda tries to make herself fit in with classmates but has a hard time. “I am outcast” is how she refers to herself at school (4, Anderson). This means that she is not accepted by the other people at her school and does not have a bestfriend like most teenage girls do. She is all alone and does not have someone to support her in her time of need. The tree she tries to draw in art class is a big symbol of her life and how she begins to see herself as a brave person and face her problems. She overcomes her fear of Andy, makes new friends, and becomes brave. She faces these struggles through hard work and grows as a person like a seed growing into a large tree that's full of life. Speak, a book with a static and scared main character or a growing girl that sprouts into a tree of life and strength.

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

William F. Halsey explains "All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them." This shows that mute Melinda was unable to overcome her struggle since she tried 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 other 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 ancillary text, The Art of Resilience, and the poem “If”, help the common theme of overcoming obstacles through a time of growth and change evolve

Depression is a whole body illness that affects a person's physical health as well as how he or she feels, thinks, and behaves towards others. In addition, a person who suffers from this disorder may have problems eating, sleeping, working, and getting along with his/her friends. In the book, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino goes to highschool with no friends and a bad attitude. She has thoughts of suicide and wants to escape her reality. She does so by going into her closet which she refers to as her “second home”. She feels safe in the closet and finds it as soothing. She finds her courage and her voice in the closet. Melinda’s progress truly shows when she is in her “foster home” and she eventually goes on finds her voice. During the book in the closet she finds her courage, she can sleep and find peace when she is in it, and she goes to it when she needs comfort.

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.

“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.

Speak Essay “ A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree” (Spike milligan). Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda that got raped at a party, ever since then she lost all her friends and struggled talking to people in high school. The tree in the book Speak is a motif in the story that symbolizes the growth of Melinda. First, she is assigned to draw a tree and thought it was too easy, Then, she tried stepping it up by adding color to the tree, finally, she built confidence in herself and agreed that she can do a better on drawing a tree.

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Young Adult novel, Speak, the reader takes a journey following the life of Freshman Melinda Sordino. The novel begins during Melinda’s summer break when a tramatic incident (sexual assault) at a party forces her to call the cops and ruin the party for all her future classmates. Her year at Merryweather High School, following the sexual assualt on her, revolves around the disdain she receives from her fellow students, her constant haste in avoiding Andy Evans (her attacker), as well as her struggles to deal with the deep depression that has over taken her. Her deep depression eventually leads to her desolate silence and eventual avoidance of school and her circumvention of her sexual assault. The novel conveys the

Symbolism is utilized to advance the theme of Speak and The Third and Final Continent. Each of these literary works uses some type of symbolism as a way to develop their theme. Notably, in Speak, talking is used as a symbol of Melinda’s progress in moving past her rape. For example, in the beginning of the novel, the author wrote, “It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing yourself is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say” (Halse Anderson 9). Explicitly stated, Melinda is bitter about her trauma, and (at this point) is far from moving past what had happened; she refuses to even acknowledge that speaking up about her rape could help. In contrast, during a scene towards the end of the novel, when Melinda’s rapist, Andy, is once again trying to