Melinda Sordino's Impact On Adolescent Life

As Melinda Sordino is entering the 9th grade the unspeakable happens to her. This event impacts many facets of adolescent life. It change is her mentally, socially and emotionally. More importantly it changes who she associates herself with. After the incident, she starts to look at females and males differently. One could argue, that at some point in the novel she doesn’t associate herself with the female gender. However, when Melinda does begins to solve her problems and learns to advocate for herself, she starts to see females in a new light. Throughout the novel Melinda aims to distinguish herself from orthodox gender roles.

The novel begins with Melinda seeing herself as an outsider. She observes the clans that her peers associate themselves

with and then criticizes their values. She see females as strange. She sees the cheerleader clan as being promiscuous blondes, girls who have everything. The Marthas are the preppy, altruists. The teachers’ pets. Yet more girls that have their lives organized. Melinda doesn’t fall under any of these categories. She distances herself from females as a result of her rape.
Throughout the course of the novel she comes to respect females more and more she does writes a report about the suffragettes.

However she learns that she must give the report orally for full credit. Uncomfortable with this idea, Melinda becomes a suffragette in her own right. She objects to giving a speech and exercises her right. She learns to stand up for herself by not speaking. After this occurrence she admires and aspires to be like females for the first time after the rape. This attaches Melinda to female empowerment. After receiving a D on the assignment, David compares her to female leaders and says, "But you got it wrong. The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys

win."
The gender roles that Melinda observes, impact her and her understanding of what it means to be female. For instance, Melinda’s mother, insists on cooking Thanksgiving dinner to fulfill her duty to her family but she admittedly can’t cook well. The Marthas are a group of girls who idolize Martha Stewart and engage in community service and homemaking activities and other stereotypically female arts and crafts activities. Heather plays into female sexuality by pursuing a job as a bathing suit model, with an adult male photographer encouraging her to be sexier. After finding her the janitors closet, her safe-haven, she comments, "All the girls avoid [the new lounge] because of the way [the janitors] stare and whistle softly when we walk by" (26). When she looks to Picasso, she notices the frequency that he paints nude females, she realizes, "Naked women is art, naked men a no-no, I bet" (119). Once placing yourself in her shoes one can understand why she dislikes stereotypical gender roles.
It is also worth noting the male characters in this novel.

Melinda is impressed with David Petrakis when he has the bravery to stand up and tell Mr. Neck that "The Constitution does not recognize different classes of citizenship based on time spent living in the country. I am a citizen, with the same rights as your son, or you. As a citizen, and as a student, I am protesting the tone of this lesson as racist, intolerant, and xenophobic.” Melinda is awestruck on Davids ability to speak up in the face of a powerful authorities. It may be worth noting that David is speaking of social acceptance and that is one thing that Melinda desires to be. Mr. Freeman is also an motivating male role model. Although he doesn’t often help Melinda he has one quote which catalyzes Melinda speaking up: "He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.” (187) This quote is special because it could be as easily applied to the tree as it could be to Melinda. Melinda must that sever dead, damaged branches, no matter how painful it may be to do so, in order to grow again. This quote gives the reader hope that once Melinda does this, like the oak tree, she will be one of the strongest (mentally)

around.
Rape is an event that changes anyone. One could argue that the rape makes Melinda misanthropic. These feelings were always around Melinda, societal cliques are detrimental and not only hurt teenagers but also adults. After the event, Melinda becomes critical of male and female interactions this impacts her mentally, socially and, emotionally. Melinda’s own mother contributes to her perception of the negative female role in society. However, people like David and Melinda’s father help Melinda see her potential. Melinda initially rebels against the orthodox female gender roles. At the end of the novel, she accepts herself as who she is and the female gender. This novel is a great example of being who you are and empowering others.