Melinda Sordino is a fourteen year old high school freshman from Syracuse, New York .Mel is the narrator and protagonist of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Who tells her story in first person perspective, where she explains the struggles she had starting school after being sexually assaulted over summer vacation. Causing depression, which lead to Mel losing a close friend. After reading the novel, I concluded that Melinda is shy, isolated and misunderstood. . As the plot progressed Mel started to trust her teachers, she also started expressing herself. Based on what was written in the novel, this is what I think that Melinda looks physically. It seems that she is beautiful , but she doesn’t know it.On page fifty of the novel Mel …show more content…
So, let’s explore how Mel viewed herself. In the first marking period of the book Mel felt isolated. After summer vacation, she was keeping everything inside .On page four she said, “ I am an outcast.” Because she had no friends at school and didn’t know how to tell her parents about that night . “Nobody really wants to hear what I have to say.” Quote from page nine .Throughout Speak Mel felt alone, she seemed to be depressed at some points. “I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it back in my closet, facing the wall.” Mel said on page seventeen of Speak. This shows that Mel was finding it hard to look at herself . I assume that it’s because she was sexual harassed .Mel was also having a hard time talking to people. My evidence to support this claim comes from page fifty. “Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher I freeze”. Second piece of evidence to show that Mel was having a hard time expressing herself quote from page seventy two . “How can I talk to them about that night?How can I start?” She wanted to talk to someone about the rape, but she didn’t know how to start or what to say which is very understandable .She has low self-esteem and confidence. My first piece of evidence to support this is from page ( Anderson 146) “ You’re better than you think you are.” Ivy observes.The book ended with Mel saying “ Let me tell you about it ”. So it is safe to say that she started to express her
Melinda, the main character of speak was raped at a summer party. She calls the cops and that is where it all started. When Melinda reaches high school she is faced with all her old friends. They all hate her and want nothing to do with her, because of her calling the cops. Throughout the whole book Melinda runs into tough situations that eventually lead to her standing up for herself. Eventually, everyone finds out the truth, of why Melinda calls the cops. Although Melinda learns to stand up for herself, throughout the book she shows signs of depression such as poor performance in school, sadness and hopelessness, and withdrawal of friends and activities.
Everyone has hardships that they come across, but what really matters is the way they overcome them. In the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda Sordino does not try to face her hardships, she wants her problems to just disappear, but what makes her different is that she learns that saying nothing will just make her problems worse. The author characterized Melinda as very brave, although it took time for her to accept her problems. Melinda tries to admit what happened to her, deal with the bullies in her school, and tries to help her ex-best friend, Rachel to see with whom she is dealing with.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of Melinda Sordino, a ninth grader that attends Merryweather Highschool in Syracuse, NewYork. The author has a unique way of writing Melinda's story. She uses subtitles instead of chapters, nd goes into detail of Melinda's everyday life, by using Melinda's perspective. The author sets a depressed mood in the story because of what the main character has gone through. The central idea of the text is communication which in the beginning Melinda lacks. August before her freshman year, Melinda and her friends show up at a senior party. At the party, Melinda ends up drinking. Andy Evans takes advantage of her drunken state and rapes her. She is too drunk to defend herself. Afterward Melinda deals 911 and the police arrive at the party, but Melinda is unable to confess what happened. When the entire school knows that Melinda was the one who called the police, everyone, including her friends, stopped speaking to her. No one knew the real reason behind the 9-11 call. Throughout the school year she cuts her wrist, skips school, and fails her classes. Melinda goes through a tough time in high school. She has one friend (who later on in the book betrays her), a difficult family, and was a victim
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 her life, growth, and her refusal to speak.
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
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
“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
Melinda's a troubled high schooler who has had difficulties fitting into her freshman class. She is also having trouble finding her identity due to some unfortunate events during the summer. In Laurie Halse Anderson's novel, speak, Melinda the main character is assigned an art project. She is asked to study drawing and research trees throughout the year. Melinda takes this project very seriously, her artwork is the only ways she communicates her emotions to the outside world.
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 is still growing and overcoming her rape. Anderson also makes allusions to literature to compare and contrast Melinda’s story to stories of other characters. To exemplify, Maya Angelou is mentioned quite frequently. In her novel I know why the caged bird sings, (p.50) she writes about how she was raped by Mr. Freeman. She can’t talk and is helped by someone with a name of a plant.
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 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
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
The book “Speak” stated many great themes, but the one that stood out to me the most was the theme of isolation. At the beginning of the book Melinda is outcasted by her peers. A good representation of how she felt is when she says “I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone, to sit next to”. Even at the beginning of the book, isolation is big problem, because not only is Malinda isolated but everyone else is isolated in their own groups. Detachment from society feeds Melinda’s depression to an extent were she can no longer control. Not only is she excluded at school but at home as well. The unfortunate thing is that Melinda can not even speak to her own parents.