Motif In The Novel Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

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.

Speak By: Laurie Halse Anderson Characters: Melinda Sordino: Melinda is the protagonist of Speak. She is the narrator of the story and is in the ninth grade. She begins the ninth grade friendless and depressed. She once had a lot of friends but they ditched her after she called the cops at a party because she was raped.

Anderson uses hyperbole ("a beast in my gut") to signify how terrible Melinda always feels on the inside. She also uses personification (memory.." stains me") to indicate that the memory will forever be etched in her. Finally, the tone of this excerpt is the tone of the major portion of this novel. Melinda is constantly depressed, never speaks, and has a negative view on

Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about named Melinda caught up in the high school chaos trying to find a way to tell everyone what happened to her over the summer. Heather, a new kid from Ohio who becomes friends with Melinda leaves her to be part of a group known as “The Marthas”. Heather is bubbly, determined, and egocentric.

The character Melinda of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak develop the theme of change throughout the story through her actions, words, and thoughts. First, in the beginning of the novel, Melinda was more isolated than the others because she chose not to communicate with anybody about her conflict and refused to talk to anybody, not even her parents. “One girl nods her head and says way to go. I hope you are okay” (Anderson 197). Melinda never communicated with anybody, verbally. In the end, when she screamed when she was being abused, her conflict was resolved. Because she chose to communicate, she also became quite popular throughout her school. Then, Melinda always thought about how terrible school is. “With hours left in the school year,

How Melinda changed over time Symbolism is where you use objects that represent another object. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a tree represents Melinda and how she feels. In Speak, Melinda is raped at a party during the summer, and she becomes mute and reserved. When she goes to school, she’s depressed and reticent. In the novel, Speak, the use of trees as a symbol reveals the growth of the main character, Melinda.

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.

Hairwomen is hammering it to death” (Anderson 101). This shows that Melinda doesn’t really enjoy how they’re reading the book because of how the class is reading one sentence at a time and analyzing every small thing in the book. Melinda was thinking why Nathaniel couldn’t just say what he meant straightforward but figured how it would be boring if he just repeated everything he said in the book. That’s why he used symbolism in the story to make it more interesting. In another example, Melinda says “I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with an S maybe, S for silent, for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame” (Anderson 101). This shows that Melinda is emotionally unstable and thinks of herself in many bad ways such as her being dumb and afraid. It also shows that Melinda is kind of mad at herself for the person she is. For that, she makes herself feel ashamed.

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.

Speak is a book that makes you feel and think about your life in a different perspective. Melinda, the main character struggles through many difficulties from parents, to school, to friends, to rape and self hatred. Through the whole book Melinda finds her way to her own voice.

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 Anderson is a book about how Melinda Sordino overcomes the troubles in her life, and how she learned to speak up for herself. The author uses a lot of archetypes and allusions throughout the book to add a fuller description to the events Melinda had gone through, which will help the readers to better understand what Anderson is trying to tell.

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.

Early in the novel,

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