Symbolism In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Towards the middle of the book Melinda starts to get better. She is still isolating herself from everyone and mentally struggling, but thoughts of the future are appearing. On page 78 she is trying to sculpt a tree out of linoleum again but is having problems. She came up with an idea of what she wanted it to look like explaining it as “a strong oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and the leaves reaching to the sun.” The tree is describing what she

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

In the book speak Melinda says “ I try to draw a branch coming out of a tree trunk for the 315th time. It looks so flat, a cheap cruddy drawing. I have no idea how to make it alive.” (pg.55) When she is doing the Trees for her art project she is basically trying to describe herself. Melinda feels like nobody understands her and she doesn't really understand herself. Melinda does not know who she wants to be or who she should be. Melinda loses friends easily so I think it makes her feel less of herself.

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, trees symbolize Melinda’s growth throughout her life to stay sane and pass the horrific time of her life. Depression is her first phase, when she starts to paint the trees that were hit by lightning. It is also shown by her not talking to many people. She starts to realize that she cannot be perfect when she imagines a beautiful oak tree but really cannot carve it properly. Her third phase comes when the trees outside her house has a few sick branches and she decides to let go of the present Melinda who is not letting her grow and nurture the old Melinda, the one before the party, the fun and outgoing one. The last phase, and tree was the one she drew for

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 this next section of the book one of Melinda's only friends asks how her (tree) project is going and she shows and tells her how terrible it is and how it will never be good. This only going terrible because her current mood is mad,depressed and annoyed, otherwise it could be going good. "How's the tree coming?" she asked. I groan "stinks! It was a mistake to sign up for art" (146). This relates to her character traits because it's showing how her project goes depending on her mood and feelings.

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 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,

In the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson Melinda is going through a transformation, by explaining it in a form of trees. She is expressing herself not much by the form of speaking, but by the trees she creates in art class. It’s to explain on how she has been at her lowest and highest points in times. She faces all these transformations as from past events and future events in her high school. The majority of these events relate to her tree transformation from lowest to highest points.

When Melinda draws the word tree she says “Tree? It’s too easy” (Anderson, p.12). Melinda thought that making an art project of a tree that had emotion would be easy. She came to find out that it was harder than she had expected. After a week of trying to create her tree out of watercolors, Melinda creates trees that have been hit by lightning. She tries to “paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally” (Anderson, pp.30-31). This statement reflects how Melinda feels towards life. After she was raped, she felt as if she was dead. She had no one to confide in and all her friends, and even people who were not her friends, were angry with her for calling the cops. She did not have the courage to tell them the reason she called the cops, because she feared they would no longer think of her the same way. Because of this, Melinda lived a lonely life with no one to talk to. She was not completely dead, but was not living her life to the fullest either. The trees she painted with watercolor are a representation of how she sees her

Inside the girls head, few emotions wonder around. Most of them include the thoughts of “why am I here” and “I can't do anything”. The novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a freshman in highschool named Melinda, she has not been able to speak up since the summer of 8th grade. The poem written by William Blake called “The Poison Tree” is about anger that can not be released by the speaker, this causes anger to grow and change his identity. Through the use of symbolism and trees, both “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson and William Blake the author of the poem “The Poison Tree”, reveal that speaking up helps define who you are, and keeping silent can block your true personality.

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.

In Laurie Anderson’s book Speak, Melinda sordino is the protagonist. The author foreshadows Melinda’s life throughout high school. Before high school, Melinda is raped by a beast named Andy Evans. This causes Melinda to go mute her whole freshman year, where she talks to no one. This was until Anderson uses symbols to explain key parts of the story with a deeper meaning. The author uses many signs of extensive detail in symbols from the use of art projects, a mirror, and a front yard,which helps explain why Melinda was mute and how the author precisely described Melinda’s life.

In the book SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino, a young girl attending Merryweather High School, is drastically transformed when raped by Andy Evans during a party at the end of her last school year. She becomes silent and secretive and does not trust others. Melinda struggles to revert back to the sweet, loving girl she used to be. Through art, learning, listening, and speaking, Melinda experiences positive transformations. Melinda’s tree, the piece of nature she is assigned to draw for a yearlong art project in Mr. Freeman’s class, gives her a way to express her emotions, and it symbolizes her growth