Imagine being through a traumatic event and didn’t know how to tell someone, or maybe not had anyone to talk to about how you were feeling? That's how Melinda Sordino felt as the main character in the book Speak by Halse Anderson. Melinda was going through the hells of highschool alone after being raped at a party, and ditched by all of her friends who she thought cared about her. She is bullied, harassed, picked on, and failing all of her classes. Except for art class where she finds the only place that she feels safe anymore. Their teacher, Mr. Freeman assigns the class a year-long project to pick a random object and turn it into a real piece of art. Melinda’s object was a tree. As the year goes on her art develops and her tree does as well. And by the end of the year when she has begun to fully heal and move past what happened to her, her tree is finished, and a beautiful piece of art. Melinda’s tree is brought up throughout the book as a symbol of how she has …show more content…
She knows how her life is going wrong. And she has started to try and make it better, by skipping school, having a fake friend, and ignoring what happened to her. When her tree project is brought up in history class 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 come alive” (Anderson 55). Melinda is starting to feel emotions, she is no longer completely dead, but she feels awful about herself. She talks badly about most of her life. Just as the tree is “cheap” and “cruddy” she also feels like she is not worth anything to anyone. Melinda is beginning to branch off into different things, just so she can look alive to others. But like her tree she has no idea how to feel like she is living, not just surviving. The tree is changing as she is because the tree is a perception of her emotions, and who she is doing throughout the
For example, the art piece she made with turkey bones, a Barbie doll head, culinary utensils, and tape had evinced her emotional distress. Mr. Freeman had seen these sensibilities within Melinda's artwork as well by saying that "[it] has meaning. Pain" (65). Melinda has an idea in her head of what she wants her tree to look like, which also symbolizes herself, "a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun" (78). Melinda can create this tree only if she becomes like this tree as a person by surrendering into acceptance of the atrocious offense committed against her and the scars that came with it.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should be mandatory reading for 8th graders due to its take on how trauma can affect the lives of its survivors. Through completed writing, the National Book Award finalist and Golden Kite Award winner, Laurie Anderson captures the thoughts of Melinda Sordino. After she gets raped and has to deal with a misunderstanding that leaves her silent and outcast. This short book of 224 pages is mostly written in short statements. From casual thoughts such as, “I zone out,” to ones with impact like, “Why go to school.”
In Speak Laurie Halse Anderson uses trees to represent Melinda's emotional growth throughout the novel. At this point of the story she has just been raped and is feeling depressed and alone and it makes her feel “diseased”. “My last tree looks like it died from some fungal infection”(92). At the start of the story she’s in a bad place because she feels that she can't tell anybody about what happened because they might not have a positive output on the things she has been through. When she starts school, everybody hates her for what she did at the party and it makes her feel unwanted.
I reach in for another piece of paper. Mr. Freeman shakes his head. "Ah-ah-ah," he says. "You just chose your destiny, you can't change that.” We see in the book that When she’s alone it’s difficult for her to, not draw a tree but one that looks good.
In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree. " When reading the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the reader will steadily notice that, as the story goes on, Melinda's artistic abilities will improve. In this essay, I will explain how trees are used to portray Melinda's transformation, by using quotes from the text and support to back it up. In her first Art class, Melinda randomly chooses the "tree" as the object she will try to draw for the rest of her school year.
But I can't think of anything else to do, so I keep chipping away at it”(Anderson 78). This response shows that her art project is failing miserably. This also is the same for many aspects of her life at the time. Her social life, family life, and academics are all dying just like her tree. Then, when she tries to restart her tree sculpture, she describes her old tree like old things in her life.
1 in 6 womenwoman will be or have been raped in the US, . With most victims being 18-30 years old. The book Speak (by Laurie Halse Anderson) is about a girl named Melinda that had something traumatic happen to her at a summer party. Due to her trauma she has a hard time making friends going into high school and with this Melinda is conflicted about her individuality and questions if she can trust any one with being herself . After spring break Melinda begins to care about herself again and tries to better herself and get over her trauma.
However , all they have to do it cut off one limb , so it can be healthy again. The tree is like Melinda , once they remove the dead part , will have healthy girl. Melinda’s dad says "He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease.
After reading what she was like the year before,Melinda, who used to be a teenager with friends who cared about her and vice versa, changed drastically. After reading up until the first and second marking period, we can begin to realize what Melinda did to cause her schoolmates to resent her. The summer before the school year began, Melinda was invited to a party which her friends would attend as well. During the party, a traumatic event occurs, which isn’t
Liam Arnold Mr. Bramanti English 9 CP 30 May 2023 Speak Essay In Speak, a realistic fiction story written by Laurie Halse Anderson, trees are a recurring symbol and are of great importance to the progression of the book and Melinda. Trees are used and described in the book as complex, difficult, and complicated. There are many similarities between Melinda’s social life just like the tree's complexion. Melinda’s life progresses throughout the story along with the tree progressing through the seasons. Throughout the story a tree is used as a symbol because of its complex nature and relatability to Melinda’s life.
But after the rape, Melinda is not happy with anything in her life and she is always stressed out. This is represented when she states, “But when I try to carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a child’s drawing. I can’t bring it to life. I’d love to give it up” (78). Melinda has changed dramatically, and this is represented by the tree she sees versus the tree she tries to make.
In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the protagonist, Melinda, is assigned to create a tree a million different ways all year. In doing so she finds ways to convey her emotions through her drawings. There are many different types of trees in the world. A tree that shows symbolism and draws emotion out of me would have to be a weeping willow tree. The weeping willow tree is elegant, girly, but has a tragically beautiful side to it.
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.
Art is way of expression. People can use actions and art or express themselves in ways other than speaking. In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, symbolism holds a big significance. The trees mentioned throughout the book symbolize Melinda’s changing “seasons” (her “growing” as a person). People, like trees, go through phases, they freeze in the winter, becoming nothing but lonely limbs without leaves covered with white slush.
“Schoolteacher’s nephew represents a dismissal by whites of the dehumanizing qualities of slavery”. When Sethe is raped, schoolteacher observed how her body is exploited. The scars on Sethe’s back are so many that they resemble the trunk of a tree with its branches. Sethe bear scars on her back because she was whipped due to her try of escape. Amy Denver, a white girl that helped Sethe when she was running away from Sweet Home, calls the tree a chokecherry tree.