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Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it
Narrative about pain
Narrative about pain
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Pain Can Always be Overcome J.K. Rowling once said, “Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.” The main character Melinda Sordino, from the novel Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, shows the pain threw out the whole novel. Melinda is a quiet, unpopular girl, which leads her to keeping the secret to herself, causing her much pain. Much of the pain is from everyone beginning to hate her for calling the cops, when really nobody knows the truth. Throughout the novel, Melinda has gone through much pain in the story from her parents, people at her school, and from Andy Evans. In the story, Melinda’s parents bring her pain for always making her feel unwanted. If she was not around her parents would not be married. …show more content…
Rachelle is mad at Melinda and does not want to talk to her. “Rachelle blows a candy cigarette smoke ring at my face. Blows me off. I have been dropped like a hot Pop Tart on a cold kitchen floor” (21). Melinda always gets ignored, sense everyone is mad at her. When Melinda called the cops, she got the girls brother arrested. “‘My brother got arrested at that party. He got fired because of the arrest. I can’t believe you did that. Asshole’” (28). Everyone calls her names from her calling the cops. People at school call her ugly. “They call me Me-no-linda for the rest of the period” (42). People tease her sense they are mad at her. Do not judge people by the way they seem. Melinda has pain from Andy Evans, because of the party. Andy found her at school and is trying to talk to her. “IT found me again. I thought I could ignore IT…But he whispers to me” (86). Andy talks to her knowing it makes her uncomfortable. Melinda sees Andy and does not know what to do. “I am a deer frozen in the headlights of a tractor trailer…He couldn’t, not in school…Why can’t I scream, say something, do anything?” (161). Melinda cannot move when she sees Andy not knowing if he will try to do things to her again. Andy is trying to rape her again and he does not think she will do anything. “‘You’re not going to scream. You didn’t scream before…You’re jealous that I took out your friend and not you’” (194). Andy knows Melinda does not talk so he does not expect her to say or do anything. There will always be someone in their life who tries to tear some else
The author uses different points of view to create tension in the story. The mom acts in a way that neglects the daughters interests. This makes them both feel less connected and leaves the daughter feeling hopeless. In paragraph 9, “‘It’s strange actually. I wasn’t expecting it, but then at the last minute the funding came through.’ She folded her arms across her waist. ‘I’m going to Costa Rica to finish my research.” This made the narrator/daughter angry and flustered with her mom’s actions. She has trouble remaining connected with her parent because they both want different things which leaves on character feeling betrayed. “Opportunity? For me? Or for you?” (34). Both of their actions and responses create tension in this story. Their communication lacks and this results in pressure on both
Not every teenage girl or teenager gets along with their parents. Everyone sees things in different way. the difference in the point of view provokes the narrator's response, because they both see in a different view that they think their parents is selfish and neglecting or don't care about them but really their parents are helping them.
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
She’s just so weak. If she would stand up for herself, no one would bother her. It’s her own fault that people pick on her, she needs to toughen up. “Shape of a Girl” by Joan MacLeod, introduces us to a group of girls trying to “fit in” in their own culture, “school.” This story goes into detail about what girls will do to feel accepted and powerful, and the way they deal with everyday occurrences in their “world.” Most of the story is through the eyes of one particular character, we learn about her inner struggles and how she deals with her own morals. This story uses verisimilitude, and irony to help us understand the strife of children just wanting to fit in and feel normal in schools today.
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.
...disrespect from Tea Cake. She threatens him, saying if he leaves her again without her permission she will “kill yuh” (124). Within Janie’s past marriages her husbands treat her comparable to a slave and isolate her from the community. Even though her voice is still developing, she will not allow her husband to show her contempt. During the trial, Janie both matures and shows control over her voice, as she faces the horror of retelling the story of Tea Cake’s death to the court room. While giving her testimony, Janie knows when to talk; however, when she is through “she hushed” (187). By expressing and controlling her voice in court, Janie ultimately reveals her new found vocal maturity, but it is only because of her final marriage to Tea Cake that Janie finally develops an understanding of when and how to use her voice.
Melinda makes minimal contact with her friends and as a consequence, loses her friends after these actions. Little did Melinda’s friends know, she was avoiding them unintentionally. On the first day of school, when Melinda sees her friends again, she realizes they want nothing to do with her. “I see a few friends, people I used to think were my friends, but they look away” (Anderson 8). This quote proves that Melinda was able to understand that her friends were not really her friends anymore. There are many reasons why victims may isolate themselves after this experience. “Victims are three times more likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and four times more likely to contemplate suicide” (Who are the Victims 3). This quote from the article may help readers understand why victims suffer from diagnosis’ like depression, which cause them to isolate themselves. As a final point, victims of sexual assaults can connect to Melinda because they may isolate themselves after this type of
In the same way the book is similar to the movie, literary devices play an important role in enhancing the novel and films conflict of Man Vs. Man of the character Melinda because she feared her rapist Andy Evan who was a senior in her high school and was in constant struggle to avoid him. For example, "IT sees me,IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up" pg. (22.2). The antagonist Andy Evans kept teasing the protagonist Melinda to relive her initial experience everytime she would see him. Melinda calls the police during a party in the summer before her freshman year in high school, which causes the party to stop and the people from the party finds out she called the police. She begins her freshman year as an outcast because they blamed her for getting them in trouble. Since she didn't want to tell anyone about that night all her friends isolated from Melinda. Throughout the film and movie it shows several of her traumatic flashbacks of her being raped. For example she mentions in the book, "I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut – I can ...
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.
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
As the story progresses clues to why people hate her so much are revealed. There is mentioning of a party that Melinda, some how, ruined. People say that they or someone they knew got in trouble at the party. Melinda wants to forget that party. She blocks it out of her head. At every mention of that night Melinda cringes.
Jeannette's mother let her children roam free and protect themselves against the dangers of the world. “fussing over children who cry only encourages them, ….. its positive reinforcement for bad behavior” pg.17. This caused Jeannette at age 3, to fall into fire and go to the hospital for months. Jeannette's mother didn’t want to have to deal with her children and told them to figure things out for themselves. This selfish act done by her mother forced her children to grow up faster. Therefore Jeannette resented her parents and wanted to make a better life for not only herself but her future children. This pushed her to succeed in life, yet without her negative relationships with her parents she might have not been able to do great things in her
“Mean Girls” begins as Cady Heron moves back to the United States from Africa where her parents were animal experts. She has an awkward first week of school where she begins to crush on a boy named Aaron Samuels, meets Janice and Damian who show her around campus because no one really wanted to get to know her on a personal level. Janice and Ian begin to spill the dirty secrets of the school including “The Plastics” who are a superficial infamous group who put everyone down. “The Plastics” infiltrate an operation to make Cady one of them, but little do they know that it is all an act to show how fake they are, thanks to Janice Ian. Because Janice and Ian told Cady of all the bad that “The Plastics” hold, she had a schema that Regina George who is the leader of “The Plastics” and her crew, were bad people and that high school was all about popularity. The reason why Janice placed this schema was because she and Regina George used to be friends back in the day. Schemas can be bad or good, but in this case, it was quite bad. It was an act of vengeance. Although the schema may have made Janice and Damian despise “The Plastics,” it made Cady Heron want to be like them. Prejudice is found within “The Plastics” because they don’t just let anyone join their group, the gi...
basis of the plot and themes of this novel. The fond memories she possessed of her mother and the harsh ones of her father are reflected in the thoughts and
Verbal and physical abuse is a constant in Celie's life. The man she married makes her raise his two children from another marriage, despises her, and physically and verbally abuses her. Celie is continually told she is skinny, ugly, and got nothing. When Shug first meets Celie she says, "You sure is ugly" (Walker 48). Celie is miserable with Mr. ___, a man who wanted to marry her sister Nettie. Nettie comes to see her sister at Mr. ____'s house and tells her before departing, "Don't let them run over you. You got to let them know who got the upper hand" (Walker 18).