True Friendship Laurie Halse Anderson Analysis

695 Words2 Pages

Most people believe that their true friends are the ones that hang out with them during the week and have a fun time when they are together. Laurie Halse Anderson uses conflict to show how your true friends are revealed during your darkest moments. By dealing with a difficult struggle, people can learn who their true friends really are. People who go through tough times learn who their actual friends truly are. During the assembly, Melinda hears kids laughing behind her and when she turns around she spots Rachel, her ex-best friend. Laurie Halse Anderson writes,” This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood about my parents, who didn't make fun of my bedroom...Her eyes meet mine for a second. …show more content…

During lunch, Heather decides to tell Melinda that they can't be friends anymore. Heather says,”We were never really, really friends, were we?’...’You are the most depressed person I’ve ever met, and excuse me for saying this, but you are no fun to be around’...’Look, you can’t eat lunch with me anymore.” After a long time of trying to fit into her new school, Heather finally finds a group, the Martha’s, that is pretty popular and accepts her. They tell Heather that in order for her to join she must tell Melissa that she can't be friends with her anymore. Heather begins finding out about Melinda's reputation and history as the book goes on and decides to abandon the only friend she had so that she could be able to incorporate herself into a more socially accepted group. Heather obeys them and betrays the first person that ever accepted her in her new school, Melinda, just so that she could be popular. Melinda believed that Heather was her friend because they hung out a couple of times and they were always together during school. Heather is not a good friend because instead of helping Melinda deal with her problem, she betrays her and joins a different group of

Show More
Related

  • Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    CeLeste also has a friend named Sandra who has always been there for her. There is a mean girl named Lively Carson who goes to there school and tries to steal Sandra from Celeste by bribing her with Sandra’s crush, Robbie Flan.(pg.47) Clueless Sandra goes for it. She leaves Celeste at a lunch table by herself and there two other friends Millie and Katy. In the end Sandra and Celeste aren’t really friends anymore. (pg.216)

    Read More

  • Lisa Bright And Dark

    429 Words  | 1 Pages

    	Lisa’s friends stick with her when no one else will. One incident happened where Lisa went into an almost trance-like episode and then proceeded to attack one of her three friends. Even through the difficult times, Lisa’s friends would not give up on her. The basic theme of friendship is expressed throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Theme of Friendship in Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Friendship is an unbreakable bond between two people and contains loyalty and love. In the story Chains, Isabel finds herself in grand friendships that play throughout the story. She showed how devoted she was towards Lady Lockton, Curzon, and Ruth by being there for them during tough times. In the end, friendship is the light through the darkness, powerful and important.

    Read More

  • The Wednesday Wars Essay

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    The astonishing book, the Wednesday Wars, takes place in Kentucky in the 1960’s during the time of the Vietnam War. Education and social is in a different style then known today and religion played a big part of the people’s lives. The protagonist feels he is different from anyone else because he is the only Presbyterian in his class and on Wednesday's when all the Catholics go to Catechism and the Jews go to Hebrew school he is alone with his English teacher. And he believes for this reason and many untold of his 7th grade English teacher, Mrs.Baker, hates him and his guts. When he addresses this issue to his family his mother assures him that the teacher doesn’t hate him,his father tells him to be good to Mrs. Baker because she was related

    Read More

  • Three Day Road Themes

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    Theme: Situations and surroundings can shatter the innocence of friendship, but more the identity of the individuals.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Wrong Lunch Line By Nicholas Mohr

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood” Being a good friend is the best quality a person could have. Friends help you through thick and thin and will always be there for you. Everyone has friends. Whether your friends with a million people or just one person, Friends have made an impact in your life today. In the short story The Wrong Lunch Line by Nicholasa Mohr best friends Yvette and Mildred are faced with difficult challenges based on their religions. Mildred is Jewish and Yvette is not Jewish. As a result, They are separated at lunch because of their different religions. By the end of the story, the girls do not care about what other people think and they decide to stand up for what

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Turning Point In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

    2088 Words  | 5 Pages

    Heather was a new student at Merryweather High School, and she instantly made friends with Melinda through sitting in the same seat on the bus on the first day of school. Melinda excepted Heather, who will soon betray her later in the book. The lunchroom is where Heather tells Melinda that they can not be friends anymore. On page 105 in the book Heather says to Melinda, “‘When you get through this Life Sucks phase, I’m sure lots of people will want to be your friend. But you just can’t cut classes or not show up to school. What’s next—hanging out with the dopers?’” This is where Heather states her reasons towards leaving Melinda. The only thing Heather did not mention is that in order to be in the group the Marthas at school, she can not be friends with Melinda anymore. Heather would rather be popular than be a good friend to Melinda, who accepted her when she was new. Also, on page 107 Heather rejects Melinda and tells her she can not hang out with her anymore. Heather says this to Melinda: “‘Look, you can’t eat lunch with me anymore. I’m sorry. Oh, and don’t eat potato chips. They’ll make you break out.’” This quote is very important because it helps explain why Melinda was able to stick up for herself. Because Heather was so harsh on Melinda, the next time Heather needed something Melinda could say no. Finding her voice after so long that it had been missing was an important event that happened to her. To add on to Heather breaking her friendship with Melinda, she was left with no one to talk to. When Heather and Melinda became friends in the beginning of the year Melinda finally had someone to be around, speak to, and motivate her. Because Heather and Melinda are no longer friends Melinda is affected in a bad way. Melinda goes back to being the outcast of the school, being depressed, and closed off.

    Read More

  • Examination of Women's Friendships through an Analysis of Katherine Philips' Friendship's Mystery

    4227 Words  | 9 Pages

    arose very few women poets; however, Katherine Philips not only became a poet, but she also displayed

    Read More

  • The Impossible Knife Of Memory Analysis

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    Behind Hayley’s back, Andy called a woman named Trish. She used to date Andy, and be like a mother figure to Hayley. Then, as Hayley describes, she started drinking a lot more, and began to make their lives a living nightmare. That was when her hatred for her began. She stepped out of their lives, for a little while but eventually, she re-entered. This brought back painful memories for Hayley to deal with. A few years later, Andy called Trish behind Hayleys back, asking for help. Hayley was totally oblivious to all of this happening, until the night of Halloween. Hayley had walked around with Finn, her boyfriend, her best friend Gracie, and Gracies boyfriend Topher. Hayley began to get cold, and wanted to go home to get a sweatpants. She walked back with her friends, to find out that Trish was having a dinner date with her father. This hurt Hayley’s feelings,to find out that Trish had moved in with them.This also ruined her trust with her father. After this, everything started to crumble, and go downhill. Since this was all going on, Hayley told Trish it was best if she left. Not much time after she left, Andy started to get out of control. He would overdose, drink

    Read More

  • Theme Of The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time India

    1287 Words  | 3 Pages

    Friends come and go, it’s the good ones that stay. In the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time India” The author convey many themes but friendship is one of the biggest. Throughout the book, Junior the main character talks about his life and how friendship is very important to him. He learns to make new friends and understand to let go of some.

    Read More

  • Popularity Vs Authenticity: Insights from John Green

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the story, Heather, a new girl at Merryweather high school, has no friends, just like the narrator of the story, Melinda. It is the first day of school, and Melinda, who is currently in the auditorium, explains: “I grab a seat. Another wounded zebra turns and smiles at me… ‘I’m Heather from Ohio’ ” (Anderson 5). When Melinda calls herself and Heather “wounded zebras”, she really means they are both isolated and feel a little nervous. Heather introduces herself to Melinda which shows her desire to make friends. At this point in the story, Heather is just starting to get familiar with the new environment. In other words, she is not popular at all right now and is desperate for friends. As the story progresses, Heather become close friends with Melinda, but she eventually meets the popular girl group, the Marthas. She tries to get rid of anything or anyone that will keep her from fitting in with them, including Melinda. This is clearly shown when Heather says to Melinda during lunch, “ Look, you can’t eat with me anymore” (Anderson 107). Heather does not seem sorry at all for ditching Melinda. “She neatly wraps her trash into a wax-paper ball and deposits it in the garbage can” (Anderson 107). When Heather “wraps her trash… and deposits it in the garbage can”, it seems as if she is also throwing Melinda away. This reveals the fact that Heather thinks Mel will only become an obstacle in her long journey towards popularity, so she “gets rid” of her. She clearly believes that popularity is valuable, thus she tries to perpetuate this social construct or fit into

    Read More

  • Kristina's Relationship With A Friend Character Analysis

    481 Words  | 1 Pages

    These new friends… are they…okay?” (Hopkins 324). Clearly Marie knows Kristina is not hanging out with the right sorts of people, but since she cannot be bothered with getting into the details of Kristina’s increasing addiction, she just beats around the bush, knowing Kristina will not confess. Kristina wonders, “Why couldn’t she just say what she meant, as in they’d led me down the path to hell” (Hopkins 324). She is aware that Marie is wise to the fact that she is doing drugs, but Kristina knows that her mother does not want to confront the situation and actually deal with it, so she simply ignores it. Even Scott comments, “Are you blind, Marie? You don’t sleep like that unless you’re crashing. Come on. We both know the

    Read More

  • Father's Mise-En-Scene Analysis

    370 Words  | 1 Pages

    HEATHERS is a movie based in 1988, it’s about 4 teenage highschool girls who trying to get popularity at their school. It has been a success, it was very accurate, the author didn’t really used a lot of settings for his movie to portray it accurately, but he was mostly based on the most important part “high school”The movie HEATHERS set the film’s mise-en-scene (visually) reveal character and shape my feelings by using the setting he creates space. By taking 3 teenage high school girls and calling them heathers, he clearly shows us that the principal characters of the movie are bullies and are trying to get more popular than what they already are by humiliating and being mean to other people, by doing so he’s making the most part of the movie

    Read More

  • The Contrariety Of Two Friends

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyone has friends. Some are so alike that it is shocking. They seem to walk, talk and even eat the same. But others are so very different that it is an absolute wonder that they can even stand each other, let alone be friends. That is how it is in the friendship of Sandra and Nancy. They differ in everything from their views on cleaning, their views on fun and even in their views on religion.

    Read More

  • My Best Friend: A True Friendship

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up in school you have your friends in 1st, then in Jr. High, and then when you get to high school you might not even know or see your friends from 1st grade anymore. For the few people who’s had a friend from 1st grade till college I think that someone they need to hold on to because if they stuck with you through all them year I know they’re there for the right reason and there not just there for a season. As Elizabeth Dunphy says, “It’s the little things that matter, that add up in the end, with the priceless thrilling magic found only in a friend.”

    Read More

More about True Friendship Laurie Halse Anderson Analysis

Open Document