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Significance of symbolism in literature
Significance of symbolism in literature
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Many people in the world are like puppets. They move to the commands of others. Once in awhile, the puppet obtains a will of its own and moves against the crowd. Ivy, from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, became that one puppet who moved against the crowd, with the crowd being social constructs. A social construct is something that the society makes true even though to other people, it has no value. There are many examples of social conflicts throughout the book and the clans or groups in school are social constructs. The main character, Melinda, struggled to fit into these categories causing her to be the Outcast to society. Nobody seems to want to truly befriend Melinda, causing her to be alone. Although Melinda is ostracized by her society Even though Melinda’s society rejected her, Ivy becomes an important friend to Melinda. Ivy supported Melinda and made her feel confident when Melinda wasn’t too happy. An instance of this is when Ivy helped Melinda feel better when she was down. After Melinda tried to talk to Rachel, and got rejected, Ivy noticed how depressed Melinda was and she tried to make her feel better. As the book states, “Someone touches my arm gently. ‘Melinda?’ It’s Ivy. ‘Can you take the late bus? I want to show you something.’... There’s more. Different pens, different handwriting, conversations between some writers, arrows to longer paragraphs. It’s better than taking out a billboard. I feel like I can fly” (Anderson 185-186). Ivy was trying to make Melinda feel better because she could tell how sad Melinda was. When the author writes “Different pends, different handwriting, conversations between some writers, arrows to longer paragraphs”, she’s trying to show the reader that Melinda has the support of many people so instead of being thrown around like a rag doll, these people gave her strength and became her backbone. They allowed her to stand up and resist being tossed around. As the
I never have slow down. This shows her need to continue and persevere through. all she has been through. Ivy as a character goes through a lot in her life and by writing these letters and expelling all her feelings and emotions onto the paper she was able to find a sort of peace with her existence. The sym Bibliography:..
The plot of the book, Speak is that Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High went to an end of the summer party with some of her friends. Things take a turn for the worst when a senior named Andy Evans sexually assaults her at the party without her friends knowing about it. Melinda is frightened, afraid, and does not know what to do so she calls 911 busting the party, and causing her friends and everyone at that school to hate her, even if they don’t know her.
First, home shaped Melinda’s identity. They noticed. “A sketch pad with charcoal pencils. They say they have noticed her drawing” (Anderson 72). This shapes Melinda’s identity, because it shows her that even when she thinks no one cares about her, her parents are always there. In the end that experience showed her if she ever wanted to talk about what happened her
Clare longs to be part of the black community again and throughout the book tries to integrate herself back into it while remaining part of white society. Although her mother is black, Clare has managed to pass as a white woman and gain the privileges that being a person of white skin color attains in her society. However whenever Clare is amongst black people, she has a sense of freedom she does not feel when within the white community. She feels a sense of community with them and feels integrated rather than isolated. When Clare visits Irene she mentions, “For I am lonely, so lonely… cannot help to be with you again, as I have never longed for anything before; you can’t know how in this pale life of mine I am all the time seeing the bright pictures of that other that I o...
In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda refers to most of her teachers by nicknames only. From the start of the novel, she points out her teachers by nickname. First is her English teacher, who is nicknamed hair woman. Melinda says, “My English teacher has no face….I call her hairwoman.” (Anderson 6). Her social studies teacher is Mr. Neck. The Art teacher is Mr. Freeman. Out of all the teachers in this book Melinda only says one of their real names. Every other teacher has a nickname except Mr. Freeman. Nicknames that are given to teachers in the novel reveal the lack of connection Melinda has with them in order to show that they do not see that she is dealing with a hardship.
Speak is about a girl named Melinda. She is a teenager that just started ninth grade. Many other teenagers were her friends in middle school, but not anymore. She had done something terrible that summer before high school began, and everyone hates her for it. She called the police at a party she snuck out too. Without her parents knowing. All her peers thought there was no reason for her to call the police. Only she knew the real reason. Melinda believes that no one understands her or will ever understand her. Knowing what she knows what happened at the party that night.
In Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Speak, Melinda keeps her thoughts and feelings inside because she is too scared to speak up.The fact that Melinda’s trapped feelings causes self destruction suggests that sharing one's issues is the right thing to do. Melinda explains, “I opened up a paperclip and scratched it across the inside of my left wrist”(87). Self harm displays depression because of an event that might have happened. In Melinda’s case she did go through a traumatic experience last year that she denies happened everyday. If someone is depressed to the point where they have self harming thoughts they should tell someone they trust because that person can provide support and help them recover. Melinda tells us that the first hour of blowing
Melinda Sordino started off her high school experience like an outcast. She didn’t have any friends and she just expected it to stay that way. All Melinda wanted was to tell her best friend what really happened, but the closest she got to a friend was Heather from Ohio. She became depressed not only from what happened but also from being stuck in the tiny town of Syracuse, New York. She is going through her freshman year acting like nothing ever happened. She spends almost the entire year mute because she thinks no one will want to hear what she has to say. Melinda struggles with trying to find her voice the entire book. It’s not until the end that she realizes how much she’s dying to say, and what she has been missing all this time. She somehow
Is it possible for someone surrounded by people to be lonely? In the novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson depicts Melinda Sordino as a young teen who is depressed due to something that occurred at a party. As a result Melinda has no friends and her grades are suffering. While Melinda is working on a project in art class, she receives comments from a classmate and her teacher, Mr. Freeman. Her classmate, Ivy says “It’s scary” “In a weird way”. Melinda thinks that the reaction is not what she wanted to hear. Melinda notices that Mr. Freeman is acting serious and examining her project and says he makes her nervous. Mr. Freeman says “This has meaning. Pain”. The bell rings and Melinda reacts by leaving before he can say more. It is possible that
When you were younger, did your parents and teachers always encourage you to express yourself and that it’s okay to be different? Not a lot of people seem to realize it, but as children grow up, the amount of pressure to blend in grows, too. In schools all over the U.S., innocent students get ridiculed just because they are unique and stand out from the crowd. In the book, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character, Melinda experiences something similar to this type of bullying, otherwise known as peer pressure. Melinda was just a normal girl who loved her friends, until the night she attended a summer party where alcohol was being served. Her friends were all drinking, so Melinda thought she was supposed to as well, and a senior
In April of 1873, Susan B. Anthony gave a speech that offered many different insights on how the voting rights of women were being inflicted and without the right to vote, women in this time were utterly powerless. Anthony uses multiple aspects of the Declaration of Independence to aid her with examples and ideas that conclude to this unjust act. Prior to giving her speech, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for simply acting on her Constitutional right as a U.S citizen and voting in the 1872 election. Though it was illegal for women to vote at this time, Anthony willingly expressed her right of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed all U.S citizens the right to a vote. She stated, in context of the Constitution, “It was we the people-not we
Throughout someone’s experience of reading this inspiring novel, he or she can come to realize how important art can be in a person’s life. Mr. Freeman, Melinda’s art teacher, helps Melinda understand that life is like art. When a mistake is made in life, there is a chance to start anew, just like erasing a drawing and starting over. Mr. Freeman introduced his class by saying, “Welcome to the only class that will teach you how to survive.” (10) In art class, some of Melinda’s projects represent her life because they can change from being scary, “dead”, and mysterious, to being beautiful, just like Melinda. Ivy, a fellow student in art class, said to Melinda, “That turkey bone thing you did was creepy, too. Creepy in a good way, good creepy.” (145) Mr. Freeman also plays a big part in helping Melinda, whose name means “I am pretty”, realize her ful...
Tracy’s identity development is heavily influenced by her new friendship with Evie from that moment on. Evie is so popular, but she makes very poor choices and Tracy follows her lead because she wants to seem just as “cool” as her new companion. This is a type of peer pressure that affects many teenagers daily.... ... middle of paper ... ...
By stating how other people behave or interact, the author offers a great chance for readers to interpret fairly for themselves what the reason for any conflict may be, or the nature of any essential contrast between the narrator and other adults in the story. In the story, there are many self-righteous opinions from people, which seem to be ironic to the readers; For example, her mother’s aggressive attitude of showing off her daughter, her piano teacher’s self-praise claiming him as “Beethoven.” All of the narrations including conversation clearly depict a different characteristic between the narrator and other people. For instance, a conversation occurs between the narrator and her mother when the mother criticizing a girl who seems similar to the author on TV which reveals dissimilar understanding for both of them to each other’s behavior. At first, the daughter speaks out for the girl by questioning her mother by saying “why picking on her […] She’s pretty good. Maybe she’s not the best, but she’s trying hard.” The daughter actually is defending for herself and reflecting that she feels uncomfortable with her mother’s disregard of her hard work. She wants to get her mother’s compliments instead of her criticisms. However, her mother response of, “just like you,” and, “not the best. Because you not trying.” Here, her mother doesn’t really answer her question, instead wants her put more effort on trying, neglecting how much she has tried before. However, in her mother’s perspective, she has never tried hard enough. By narratively stating the conversations she has encountered, readers perceive a strong implication of the reason for a future conflict between her and her mother.
Being different from other species in the world, we, the human, occupy our own language and thought. We use the words that we have learnt to express what is in our mind, as well as the emotion since we learnt how to talk. In modern days, the conversation skills is more and more emphasized and it becomes one of the skills that we need to possess in order to survive. Therefore, learning how to speak and why we need to speak appropriately becomes the tasks that we need to consider in our live.