Melinda’s Transformation in “Speak” Through Motifs Imagine going to school and getting looks of hate from everyone you used to know. Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak” tells the story of the fanatical journey of the high school freshman, Melinda Sordino, as she struggles to deal with the fallout from a horrific event. The story uses several motifs that enrich the narrative, but illustrate Melinda’s growth and transformation. Among these motifs, three stand out due to their significance: the tree, mirrors, and silence. Her emotional struggles and gradual transformation are reflected by these motifs and how it shows Melinda’s experience and emotional states, leading towards her self- discovery and healing. Trees: The tree motif is a central idea …show more content…
By the end of the story, Melinda’s tree is vibrant and full of life, representing her finding her voice again and her finally healing and accepting. “My tree is definitely breathing... (Anderson 196). She finally feels somewhat confident in herself and feels like she can breathe again. The tree is finally alive, and so is she. As she is drawing her final tree, she realizes that it does not need to be perfect to have worth, which is symbolizing that just because she isn’t beautiful does not mean she has no value to others. The transformation from her withered and nearly dead tree to a tree that is healthy and vibrant, signifies her now strength and her sense of …show more content…
Melinda feels repulsed by herself and becomes aware of her imperfections every time she sees her reflection in the book. Melinda's deeper self-loathing is symbolized by her hatred of her own image “It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don’t even know” (Anderson 17). Later, she accidentally sees her reflection in a mirror and doesn't recognize herself, showing how much physical and internal change she has gone through since the that night. She thinks her reflection looks ugly in her bedroom mirror and covers up the mirror in her closet with a poster of Maya Angelou. Covering up the mirror shows her desire to hide from her reflection as it forces her to face and think about the pain and guilt, she feels. However, Melinda begins to confront her trauma as she faces a mirror and acknowledges her own appearance. In the end, Melinda uses a mirror as a weapon, shattering the one in her closet to threaten Andy as he attempts to rape her. His lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak to me. That’s good enough.” (Anderson 195). The mirror was to show how this piece of her past (the rape) was only going to fuel her to become stronger and that Melinda is able to literally pick up the pieces of her shattered self and take control of her life again. This represents that now that she spoke up, she can defend herself, break free and speak. Silence: Representing Melinda’s initial state of voicelessness and isolation
Throughout the passages, Laurie Halse Anderson establishes the Central Idea through the use of Characteristics and Imagery, revealing that the loudest words are the ones that aren’t spoken.
In the novel, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. Melinda, the protagonist, does not join a group at Merryweather High School. Lots of people join but don’t get into the group on the first day, but some people get lucky and get it. Once someone joins a group they will change, and probably won’t be the same person you knew before they join the particular group.
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 all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
Is choosing the wrong path to find the real you a bad thing? In a story generally the
After all, Melinda Sordino overcame her tramatic experience that led her to open up and release the painful silence she was carrying inside. The flashback that is shown of her traumatic makes up the symbolism of the tree and the closet that reflects on herself, and the conflict the character Melinda faces with her rapist, are the main literary devices that both the film and novel probes.
Throughout the novel, crucial family members and friends of the girl that died are meticulously reshaped by her absence. Lindsey, the sister, outgrows her timidity and develops a brave, fearless demeanor, while at the same time she glows with independence. Abigail, the mother, frees herself from the barbed wire that protected her loved ones yet caused her great pain, as well as learns that withdrawing oneself from their role in society may be the most favorable choice. Ruth, the remote friend from school, determines her career that will last a lifetime. and escapes from the dark place that she was drowning in before. Thus, next time one is overcome with grief, they must remember that constructive change is guaranteed to
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.
In the novel Speak, the author Laurie Halse Anderson uses the protagonist, Melinda, to show the importance of verbal communication in healthy relationship. Laurie Halse Anderson includes events and altercations in which it is clear to the reader that it could’ve been avoided by communicating.The author brings the reader through a process that the protagonist goes through in the story of thawing out of the frozen shell she’s in where she can’t talk. Laurie Halse Anderson uses repetition to emphasize the importance of her face being frozen. In addition, she also includes events that Melinda faces with her family that shows lack of communication. Another way Laurie Halse Anderson shows how verbal communication is needed is by walking the reader through instances where if Melinda spoke her side and what she felt, there could’ve been a complete different outcome. Using different tactics, it is evident that Laurie Halse Anderson is emphasizing the importance of communication in her novel Speak.
The story takes place from Melinda's perspective. Every character's description, emotions and behaviors are written as Melinda sees them. The characters in the story are people in Melinda's life. Her family life seems boring and uninteresting. Her mother, Mrs. Sordino is wrapped up in her retail sales job. So, there is an obvious lack of mother/daughter compassion in their relationship. Her father is mean, strict and uninvolved. He doesn't care about how she feels, and he doesn't play much of a role in Melinda's life. She has names for the people she doesn't like. For example, her English teacher is a scary looking woman and her hair looks as if she never combs it, so Melinda refers to her as "Hairwoman." She also refers to her enemy/rapist, Andy Evans, as "It" or...
In conclusion fourteen year-old Melinda Sordino, finds her lost voice and is no longer a victim of sexual assault but a survivor. Desperate to regain the person she was before her trauma, she did not realize she has been developing into a stronger person. She is learning and growing from experience, which she is now able to speak of.
Everyone has had that one moment, or maybe a couple. The moment when their life changes forever, the moments when they know they will never be the same person they were yesterday. These moments are turning points that play a large role in a person’s identity.
“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson presents Melinda’s (a teenage girl) life as she drifts through her adolescent years, where she struggles to overcome internal depression, as well as typical issues, involving her social life. Melinda’s life in an obscure world, where enigmatic challenges constantly clog her path towards a normal and healthy life, she feels lost and betrayed. Likewise, the boy that raped her attends the same school as her, causing her to have constant memories of the event. Thus, Melinda’s defective life compromising of rape, lack of communication, and depression mirrors the lives of many teens around the world. In addition, this book revolves around the dominant theme of adolescence, resulting to an effect of a realistic- fiction novel.
Taylor Greer, the main character of the book, faces several occurrences where evolving her personality is the only way to cope and carry on. From a young age, she knew what she wanted and would stop at nothing to accomplish her goal. Her first name change came when “[she] was three..[she] stamped her foot and told [her] mother to call her Miss Marietta” (2). Taylor’s hard-edged personality sought more than the “abundance of potato bugs and gossip” that the small town of Pittman provided (13). However, once renamed and on the road, a child was placed in her car for Taylor to take care of. Taylor originally had no plans of having a baby. If so, she “would have stayed in Kentucky” (18).
Innocence is something always expected to be lost sooner or later in life, an inevitable event that comes of growing up and realizing the world for what it truly is. Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” portrays an event in which a ten year old girl’s loss of innocence after unveiling a relatively shocking towards the end of the story. Set in post-Civil War America, the literary piece holds very particular fragments of imagery and symbolism that describe the ultimate maturing of Myop, the young female protagonist of the story. In “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the literary elements of imagery, symbolism, and setting “The Flowers” help to set up a reasonably surprising unveiling of the gruesome ending, as well as to convey the theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing the harsh reality of this world.
In the novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson utilizes the motif of the janitor's closet to show the growth and changes Melinda goes through, starting nonfunctional, and then finally finding her voice and learning how to “speak”.