Character Analysis Of Melinda In Laura Anderson's Speak

At this point in the novel, the only thing revealed about what happened was that she had called the cops on a high school party during summer, leaving her friends mad at her. Melinda went through the first few classes and lunch on her terrible first day, finding them all completely miserable.

Melinda is an outcast. Everyone, including her now ex-best friend, hates her after she calls the cops at a party. Why? She was raped. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the author depicts a frighteningly real story about the fictional character Melinda.

Consequently, Melinda’s character is one which most teens relate to. Friendship is very important aspect of high school. In high school friendships start to change and so do people. People feel like they have to be cool and popular in high school and that's when everything starts to change for Melinda.

This causes her to be unable to speak as normal and express herself only through self physical acts of hurting herself. However, through her pain, she begins to grow from a victim to a survivor and understands that the only way to go against evil is to speak out against it. Melinda in Speak is a high school freshman who is raped by Andy Evans who is a senior in high school. Due to him raping her she loses her ability to speak normally and say what she feels and how she feels. Melinda gains her confidence to speak in public freely again by the end of the story.

The tragic event along with the rejection of her friends took a rather large toll on Melinda Sordino, in which, at one point, she stops

Painting is like keeping a diary on canvas. Art expresses ones feelings in ways words cannot. This is true for protagonist Melinda Sordino in the Laurie Halse Anderson novel about teenage rape, Speak. Anderson uses trees, mainly Melinda’s paintings and sculptures of trees, to chronicle Melinda’s growth in the novel. Instead of Melinda saying exactly how she felt all the time in the book, Anderson uses Melinda’s paintings to keep a diary of her emotions.

Her book describes the hardship and struggle she faced growing up in Little Rock and what it was like to be hurt and abused all throughout high school.

At the end of the story she finally found her voice and was able to stand up for herself. In the beginning, Melinda didn't talk to anyone, barely even to her parents. She says, “I have tried so hard to forget every second of that stupid party and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do. I can't tell them what really happened” (Anderson, 28).

Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson uses literary devices to help the reader better understand Melinda’s personal changes and growth. Trees, lips, and coldness are all symbolically used to represent the changes of Melinda. Throughout the novel, trees play a big part in symbolizing Melinda. Melinda is constantly drawing and relating to trees in the book.

(115-116). This sedate tone is a clear craft move by the author. She specifically makes Jeannie seem resigned and about to give up. Denials of small, everyday, opportunities like this can have a damaging impact on one’s mental health and can create an inferiority complex. For example, Jeanne starts blaming herself and her race for everything that happens to her.

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about a girl named Melinda, who shows signs of depression throughout the story. She has no friends and is hated by people she doesn’t even know. This is because she called the cops at a party, where she was raped. Anderson includes literary elements to show how Melinda is depressed. Throughout the novel, she uses many different literary elements to show Melinda’s conflict.

Melinda was raped as a young girl heading into her first year of high school and what happened after that was a catastrophe and would change her life and her peers view of her. Melinda perpetually haunted by her treacherous past memories struggled to stay happy and sane throughout her overwhelming first year of high school. Melinda evolves over time as she longs to be her past happy self again she slowly but surely begins to regain her happiness and self-confidence. With life-changing events coming at Melinda every which way, she experiences the highs and the lows and finds little things in life like her extraordinary passion for art to help her get through the toughest times in her life. This story will make your heart melt with sorrow and compassion, but also bring to you a remarkable story with realistic like events and settings.

Isolation is when one is set apart from others and is virtually alone. In Laurie Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, Melinda, isolates herself and is further isolated from others. Isolation can be seen through three symbols: lips, mirrors and a closet. Melinda thinks no one cares about what she has to say, resulting in silence. After the incident in the summer, Melinda cannot bare to look at herself.

Melinda, in a lot of ways, starts out like that it the book. She becomes a shell of herself from before the party happened and because no one else was there, she is lonely and doesn't have anybody to go to and to make matters even worse, she’s covered by the reputation that she has formed. In the book, Laurie Halse Anderson uses symbolism to convey exactly what Melinda can't say. In the beginning of the book, Melinda starts high school carrying her emotional wounds with her after something happens mysterious to her at a party during the summer.

Speak Journal Response This journal is in response to the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. As a coming-of-age contemporary novel, Speak discusses many sensitive issues that are still prominent even today. In this story, we explore the life of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old girl who is beginning high school right after experiencing an utterly traumatic event: rape. Melinda is left friendless, with no one to help and support her after what happened.