Reputation In Speak By Merryweather High School

601 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Introduction to a bullying behaviour

Merryweather High School is a typical high school that deals with bullying, popularity issues, rumors, and reputations. Over the four years during high school many different things can happen. In every high school, people are bullied, forgotten, looked over, etc. Ordinary high schools have students that are considered “popular” and they intimidate everyone. In most situations this can be a bad thing. Students in high school usually attend parties and make choices that might not be the best for their reputation or future. In the book Speak, Melinda faces many of the typical high school incidents like bullying, popularity, rumors, and reputation. When bullied, most students feel like they have no place and nowhere to be or go. This is how Melinda felt when all of her classmates bullied her. She became the outcast after the party that would ruin her life and leave her in depression. Because Melinda called the cops after she was raped, everyone hated her. She was pushed to the side and forgotten by the school. This happens at every high school. If a person does something that causes students to get into trouble, that said person is banished from social events, lunch …show more content…

It is exactly like how books and movies portray it to be. Everyone strives to be one of “those” kids that have everything that everyone dreams of having; a boyfriend/girlfriend, friends, social life, beauty, etc. In Merryweather High School, everyone wanted to be like the Marthas or the star jock, Andy Evans. Heather, the new girl from Ohio and Melinda’s only “friend,” tries so hard to be one of the “it” girls of Merryweather High. She does everything they ask and more. In typical high schools around the country, teens try desperately to be liked by the cool kids. They become so caught up in being popular that they do not even see the real world. This also goes to show Merryweather is an accurate representation of an American high school and the students fit the

Show More
Related

  • Laurie Halse Anderson Speak Quotes

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    Moreover, Melinda doesn’t know anybody, but all she sees is people going in groups. On page 4 it says.”We fall into clans: Jocks.Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human waste, Eurotrash Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Martha's, Suffering Artists, Thespians Goths, Shredders. I am clanless” Even on the first day or week of school everyone goes their separate ways . Another thing I see in this quote is that people join all these clans because they can’t face that they can’t for make any new friends. They don’t want to face the difficulties in life that Melinda needed to go through in her first year of high school. The last thing I see in this quote is that there is different types of personalities in the school that they want to be known for.

    Read More

  • Laurie Halse Anderson

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda is a 14 year old girl who is struggling to find not only a friend group, but also a friend who will stick by her side, but the year before Melinda was invited to a under age drinking party, and she was raped. She was not safe so she called the police. Melinda's desire to protect herself after she is assaulted does not conform to her peers ideas of what is ¨cool¨ and acceptable and so she is ostracized, experiences severe depression, but forced to understand what true friendship really is.

    Read More

  • Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod

    599 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

    1740 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of High School Confidential: Notes On Teen Movies

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    Movies often don’t grasp this concept of teenagers struggling to fit in with their own group of friends. Denby states “lost in the eternal swoon of late adolescence, they’re (teenagers) thinking about their identity, their friends, and their clothes” (426). The most important thing too many teenagers in high school are fitting in. They idolize the idea of having a group of friends who are well known around school that other looks up too. The movie Never Been Kissed shows how teenagers often try to hard to gain and maintain friends. The main character who is a newspaper reporter goes back to school pretending to be a high school student. She tries to befriend a group of good looking rich kids and tries her best to impress them and she embarrasses herself in the process. The movie shows of allot of the average teenagers basic

    Read More

  • Analysis of Laura Anderson's Speak

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    Luckily, for Melinda she found the strength she needed in a special person and project to support and encourage her expression. So many victims of sexual assault are trapped inside their minds, kind of like the way this book reads. Like a series of letters, trapped from within someone else's mind. They are afraid to tell their story, for fear they will not be believed. But finding that one outlet that builds your inner strength gives you the courage to face your fears. The character transformation that Melinda made was remarkable. She started her freshman year out as an outsider and ended up feeling confident and rejuvenated.

    Read More

  • Phoebe Prince: Should School Bullying Be A Crime?

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    The purpose of writing this article is to highlight the adverse effects of bullying on vulnerable individuals. Hopefully, the light shed here using Phoebe Prince story will put a halt on this vice in our school system. Playing it safe by being well mannered can only get you so far when it comes to avoiding being victimized by bullies.The key to avoid bullying as such is not to learn how to be as invisible as possible, but to learn how to stand up for oneself and have a support network that one can fall upon. The Phoebe Prince story features prominently to help students and parents understand the dynamics behind bullying and how to arrest it so that no individual gets emotionally damaged.

    Read More

  • Speak Essay

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Teenagers are young, naïve and impressionable. They are also insecure and usually sometimes unable to express themselves so they put others down. They are pressured daily to do things they really don’t want to do. They often find themselves doing something they said they would never do. Because of the influence of those around them, they are trying to cover their insecurities by saying things to make others feel bad about themselves. The traits above describe the two main characters in the short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. Both Bernice and Marjorie are young teens dealing with the pressure of being popular and fitting in. Bernice, being the quieter, shyer girl, deals with trying to fit in in a place she feels she doesn’t belong. Marjorie, the louder, seemingly confident girl puts on a front about who she is, deep down being an extremely jealous person. The characters in the story are both dealing with insecurities, each reacting in there own way.

    Read More

  • leaving atlanta

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first section of the book it starts off with a little girl named Tasha. Tasha is in the Fifth grade, and doesn’t really have many friends. It describes her dilemma with trying to fit in with all the other girls, and being “popular”, and trying to deal with a “Kid Snatcher”. The summer before school started she practiced at all the games the kid’s play, so she could be good, and be able to get them to like her. The girls at school are not very nice to her at all. Her struggle with being popular meets her up with Jashante, a held back Fifth ...

    Read More

  • Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

    1319 Words  | 3 Pages

    When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:

    Read More

  • The Breakfast Club Sociology

    1686 Words  | 4 Pages

    Claire Standish was known as “the princess”. She dressed in pink and acquired many material items because of her rich parents. Many students envied her life, and considered her to be stuck up and snobbish because she received whatever she wanted. Andrew Clark was known as “the athlete”. He wore a letter jacket with all of his accolades displayed and seemed to discriminate and bully kids whose social statuses were below his. This is especially apparent in his reason for the detention: bullying a fellow student in the locker room. In addition to this, both Claire and Andrew’s reference groups and family social contexts guided them to the detention that day. Andrew’s father and friends encouraged him to perform the bullying act that landed him in detention. His father was happy that Andrew was attending the detention because he believed it would give him a better reputation in the athletic world. Claire’s father allowed her to skip school one day to go shopping. It seemed that Claire’s family believed that material items and wealth was more important than school. Claire displayed this belief and landed a spot in detention. Although Claire and Andrew did not reside in the same high school cliques, their cliques were near the top of their high school hierarchy. Their cliques defined what everyone thought they wanted, but the stereotypes that surrounded these two individuals was a façade. They also discovered through the journey of the film which was the realization that everyone is the same on the inside, even though their outsides are

    Read More

  • “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood”

    877 Words  | 2 Pages

    The high schools are made up of cliques and the artificial intensity of a world defined by insiders and outsiders. (Botstein pg.20) The insiders hold control. over the outsiders because of good looks, popularity, and sports power; the teacher. and staff do nothing to stop them, the elite.

    Read More

  • Speak And Twisted Analysis

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Likewise, teenagers relate to the main characters in the novels, "Speak" and "Twisted" by Laurie Halse Anderson. Students go to school, and eat alone for lunch because of their appearance. In comparison to, Melinda saying, "I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitudes. And I don't have anyone to sit with. I am Outcast (Speak, 4). She's realizing she's different from others. Also, Tyler revealing, "I figured if I killed myself, everybody who treated me like dirt would feel awful" (Twisted, 190). Melinda and Tyler suffer from adolescence of being a teen, which is why Anderson crafts a theme of facing conflicts to become a better person, and speaking out about a terrible fear.

    Read More

More about Reputation In Speak By Merryweather High School

Open Document