Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson Book Analysis

INTRODUCTION : “When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.'' As Laurie Halse Anderson said in the book Speak, a person that doesn't express itself usually starts to fall apart and that is what happened to the protagonist of this story. Sometimes ignoring reality is easier than facing it, sometimes keeping your mouth shut is easier than explaining what is really happening in your life, Repression is a common coping mechanism used to deal with one's feelings and thoughts. The protagonist of this story was a freshman girl named Melinda who had been raped by a senior the summer before high school. The trauma caused her to stop talking, and she was forced to go through all the emotions alone because even if she said something no one would have believed her.

FIRST PARAGRAPH : IDENTITY Melinda, feels hopeless, without a purpose, she is living her life trying to survive after what happened to her that summer. You can see as the story goes on how Melinda’s character develops and becomes more powerful, finally understanding that your negative experiences do not define you and that you can always become someone better than what you already are. At the beginning of the story, Melinda avoids any chance she has to explain herself in different situations, and with this feeling that is projected by her to the reader, you can immediately tell that she is not alright and that something happened to her before. The identity of a person is what that person is, at first, she’s a completely different person as she says “this closet is abandoned -it has no purpose, no name. It’s the perfect place for me”.(p.26) This is when she finds the closet that will become her safe place in the school and you can tell how miserable she is after the trauma she had because she is comparing herself to something that is not alive, she is saying that she does not have a purpose here and that she is empty like the closet she found. It's hard for her to believe in herself, and she is afraid of what people think of her because she thinks that they would not believe her if she told someone the truth. As the story processes she finally starts to change herself and wants to speak about what happened. This passage would not be easy. It involves bravery, the willingness to think beyond what you learn and find yourself. As the story goes on you can see how she starts opening herself, but she’s still insured she says that : “Jeans that fit, that's a good start. I have to stay away from the closet, go to all my classes. I will make myself normal. Forget the rest of it.”(chapter 59) Melinda is deciding to take control of her transformation and guide it in a more positive direction. She is not able yet to talk about what happened before high school but Forgetting doesn't seem to be an option, for her it is the right thing to do. She keeps getting better even though sometimes she falls back into depression and sadness but in the end of the story we can see the change that happened in herself as she admits to herself what happened that summer : she was raped, and that it’s not her fault, and she has to go on. One of the last phrases of the book says: “The tears dissolve the last block of ice in my throat. I feel the frozen stillness melt down through the inside of me, dripping shards of ice that vanish in a puddle of sunlight on the stained floor. Words float up.”(p198) Here you can see how her identity was formed and how she was able to get over the trauma. A lot of people could say that her identity is revealed because the trauma she had is something that made her how she is voluntarily. Her trauma put her into a position where she could have let everything go, but she decided to become a better person and form herself to become the person that she is now, that is why her identity was formed, it was formed by herself.SECOND PARAGRAPH : ISSUE BOOK Speak can be definitely seen as an issue book because it explains how Melinda is affected by a traumatic event and it was explained well because it makes you go through all the phases she goes through making it feel like you could be her and how close this story is to all of us (especially teenage girls) and it makes you understand how this trauma affects girls in their lives and changed them. Without even knowing what happened to her, you can understand what happened to her by all the signs. As she says “I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.” You can immediately tell that something is wrong with her, she obviously wants to stay on her own and fake that everything is good, which is an idea that is wrong but a lot of people do it anyway. Speak is deeply emotional and richly complex with many themes in it. The first major theme of the novel is a feeling of dislike for someone or something considered not good enough. We don’t know why so many students hate Melinda at the beginning of the novel, but it plays a big role in making her feel like an outcast and it makes you feel a lot more empathy for her. You can understand the pain she is going through just by how she reacts with other people which is almost nothing, she does not show any sign of interest in talking with other people, or explain what happened because she never actually understood what really happened until she decides that it’s time to become a better person, and she starts changing, fighting for herself and in the end she makes it. The novel is realistic in presenting also the parents who have problems of their own, and who may not have the time or the energy to deal with a daughter who may be going through something traumatic. The only one love in Melinda’s life is art, it's her healing device. This book shows two different messages, we could say that they are different whit the same main point : Rape happens even if you don't know it, you never know if someone went through this pain if they don't speak about it. We can see two different messages because we have to change our perspective. If we are a girl we can see how this trauma could affect us, it teaches a lesson that if you ever go through this pain, you have to talk because no one will do anything if you don't speak. If we see a prospective from a boy you can learn how bad this effects a girl and you should learn a respectful behavior towards women because 1 out of 6 women has been victim of sexual assault and 9 out 10 victims of rape is a woman, this means that woman are not the problem but men should learn how to prevent this and be respectful because everyone has the choice to choose what to do with their body.

THIRD PARAGRAPH : LITERATURE The book uses metaphor to show how Melinda copes and responds to high school and the guilt associated with the rape she endured. Laurie Anderson uses the metaphor of a scarred tree throughout the book to express this pain and deal with the aftermath; a metaphor is a “strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun.” Melinda repeatedly attempts to draw the tree, but each time the tree looks dead to her -- a metaphor that describes the death of her innocence after her rape. Toward the end of the book, she describes her recovering tree and emotional condition: “My tree is definitely breathing; little shallow breaths like it just shot up through the ground this morning.” Laurie Anderson injects humor into Melinda's character using metaphors to describe herself and environment: “I dive into the stream of fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall to the cafeteria.” She compares her teacher Mr. Neck to a bull. “Mr. Neck storms into class, a bull chasing thirty-three red flags.” Melinda states, “Mother is the rock, I am the ocean.” She refers to her parents arguing as, “A simmering argument, a few bubbles splashing on the stove.” Melinda describes her feelings of isolation when she thinks, “I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographical special.” Also, another example could be one she says : “I would be lucky to get an invitation to my own funeral, with my reputation” (p 41). Its ironic how no one likes Melinda, so she is saying that she wouldn't even be invited to her own funeral. This book can be seen as a hero journey all the way through because our protagonist Melinda can be seen as the main hero, then we have Andy Evans who is the antagonist because of what he did to Melinda, then we have David which can be considered as the support characters that is nice to Melinda and helps her. In fact the book is full of metaphors as I said before L. Anderson uses them even in the character names, we can see how David and Mr. Neck represent David and Goliath because David decides to speak in Mr. Neck class where no one has the courage to do something. We can see another example in Mr. Freeman, who is the art teacher and since for Melinda art is her way to be free his name can represent exactly this.

CONCLUSION :

Everyone has their one identity but your job to find out who you are, no one will tell you how to be yourself the only person that can, is you. We should learn from this book that is important to speak for yourself, you have to give yourself a change when everything is dark it is the moment to find the light in your life, this is exactly what Melinda did and in the end she found herself, and she fought and won over her trauma becoming her own hero, because we all have a voice, and we should all use it when necessary to express our thoughts and feelings. “Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your conviction. No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin color, gender identity: speak yourself. “Find your name, find your voice by speaking to yourself. — BTS' Kim Nam Jun (RM), UN General Assembly 09.24 2018.