Speak A Long Year With No Friends Analysis

As the story unravels, Melinda

Speaking up takes courage and trust, Even though Melinda spoke up, she was betrayed after that. After Melinda told her friend, Rachel what had happened and who did it, she was betrayed. As stated (pg. 184) “”Liar!” she stumbles out of her chair and grabs her books off the table. “I can't believe you.

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.

At this point in the novel, we make an assumption that this is an attempted suicide, which greatly relates with the definition of self-destructive behavior: “any type of behavior that is harmful or potentially harmful to the person that engages in this type of behavior”, according to Wikipedia. This event and quote are great evidence of how the rape impacted Melinda mentally. Without speaking, this is Melinda’s cry for

Consequently, Melinda was running away from Mr. Neck and stumbled across and old janitor’s closet, this helped in her transformation of who she is at the end of the novel. When Melinda ran into the closet, she felt safe. Moreover, the closet helped Melinda in many ways, such as a way to exit from drama. Her closet was her safe haven, she made many decisions that bettered her and people she cares about. For example, in the closet she conflicted about what to tell Rachel or to say nothing at all.

She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.” This showed her love for books, but also acknowledged her loneliness. In Speak, Melinda is traumatized from being taken advantage of and raped by an older boy named Andy Evans. She had called the police at the party they were at, and ever since then has been seen as an outcast.

Even new friends she makes throughout the story abandon her because of the depression given to her by the incident that she is keeping secret. Secrets, no matter how trivial or serious, can impact your life and your relationships in troubling ways when silenced. Melinda’s life has done a one hundred and eighty degree turn because of her silence.

" Speak also states on page 161 " I am a deer in headlights of a tractor, is he going to hurt me again? He couldn't in school... why am I so afraid. " These examples from the text show all the problems Melinda had, for instance what Andy did to her,

(Anderson, 165). In this part of the book melinda is watching an episode of oprah and it's an episode about a girl who's been raped and melinda's subconscious wakes up and makes it seem like oprah is talking to her telling her she was raped, she just started to come to realization that she really was raped at the party and she was getting really overwhelmed and started feeling sick. She already knew she got raped, but she was in doubt and she didn't want it to be true which is why it took so long for her to

After Melinda admits to herself that she was raped, Melinda starts to realize that

This chapter ends with David being allowed to record what goes on in class practically beating Mr. Neck, and Melinda calls David her hero. Melinda began to feel inspired by what David had done as his act of standing up to Mr. Neck reminded Melinda of her struggle of not being able to speak up about what happened to her. David showed her that speaking up can change things and that people will get what they deserve. Moreover, the chapter “Wishbone” shows that Melinda feels stuck or trapped in the same place. She has so much more to her than she lets on, but it’s all hidden inside because she can’t get herself to speak, it also reveals that she is in a lot of pain.

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.

Although isolating herself was not making the incident disappear, Melinda thought it was better than talking

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.