Preview

Melinda's Violation In Speak

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
721 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Melinda's Violation In Speak
Melinda is a freshman in high school, with no friends. The past summer, she called the cops on a party. At least that's what everyone heard. The book is called Speak. She goes through a lot inside the book. It’s someone's job to tell you how she has changed. Read on learn how she has developed through the book. With every page, every sentence, and every word, you get closer to what happens.
Melinda has portrayed herself to be extremely quiet. “I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.” People did begin to notice. Mostly her parents. She doesn’t talk, at all, she’s completely mute. Her grades have dropped and she doesn’t talk to anyone. Not even her parents. “All the crap you hear on TV about communication
…show more content…
Victims are often ashamed of what has happened to them, and think that no one will believe them. In this book, Mel’s decision to keep her violation a secret is a tragic but understandable one. Throughout the book she explores different ways of communicating. From passing notes to writing graffiti on bathroom stalls. A part in the beginning explains that she wanted to scream, but couldn’t find the words. “I open my mouth to breath, to scream, and his hand covers it. In my head my voice is as clear as a bell: “NO I DON’T WANT TO!” But I can’t spit it out. I’m trying to remember how we got on the ground and where the moon went and wham! Shirt up, shorts down, and the ground smells wet and dark and NO! I’m not really here, I’m definitely back at Rachel’s crimping my hair and gluing on fake nails, and he smells like beer and mean and he hurts me hurts me hurts me and gets up and zips his jeans and smiles.” Melissa didn’t want it to be happening, she wanted it to be a dream. Then again, who …show more content…
He locks himself and her in the closet she used to hide during the year. “He pins me against the closet door. Maya Angelou looks at me. She tells me to make some noise. I open my mouth and take a deep breath.” About a paragraph later Melinda yells out “NNNOOO!!!” She fought Andy back, and ended up holding a shard of glass against his neck. Melinda pushes just hard enough to raise one drop of blood. The lacrosse team found them in the closet, after she screamed. Melinda had never felt comfortable talking to anyone about what happen. In the last chapter of the book, though, she finally decides it’s time to open up. “Mr. Freeman: You get an A+. You worked hard on this.” He hands me the box of tissues. “You’ve been through a lot, haven't you?” The last sentence in the book comes from Melinda. “Let me tell you about it.” By the ending stopping there, we know she told Mr. Freeman about what

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Speak Data Sheet

    • 1608 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Summary & Theme: The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about an incoming freshman named Melinda Sordino. She’s riding the bus to school but she doesn’t have any friends to sit with. While she’s looking over the crowd of kids on the bus she spots her ex best friend, Rachel, but even she mouths “I hate you.” After Melinda attends her first few classes she already hates high school. When she gets to Art class she is assigned a subject that she must turn into art for the rest of the year. Melinda receives the word “Tree” and doesn’t understand how to make that creative. She asked to switch but her teacher wouldn’t let her. Later on, she meets a girl named Heather in one of her classes, although they are completely different people, they start to hang out. Heather really wants to become popular and would like Melinda to help her. She couldn’t care less about popularity but continues to nod and agree with Heather. A couple weeks later, she discovers an old janitor closet that no one uses; she decides to make this her hideaway. She decorates it to her liking and sits in it when she needs some space. Due to Heather’s plot for popularity, Melinda finds herself caught up in helping her impress “The Marthas”, a clique Heather wants to become a part of. Soon enough, Heather tells Melinda that they can’t be friends anymore because they are too different and that she is really weird and depressed. For the first time, she actually wants to be friends with Heather; for Heather is the closest she has to a friend. Melinda starts to skip school more and more and her grades slip. Her parents are angry and disappointed, so they have a meeting with the principal. They try to get her to speak up about why she is acting out but she just stays silent. Her punishment is in school suspension; Andy Evans is there with her. All the memories from an incident in summer…

    • 1608 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    "I am an Outcast" (4). Melinda Sordino is considered an "outcast" in school since the accident. It's her first year of high school and she's already failing her classes and at her social life. Melinda fails to speak up for herself several times in the book. A few times she kept quiet was when some girls were kicking her, when her parents were yelling and when Heather needed her.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the book, Melinda has problems with her family that she isn't doing well in school and they don't pay attention to her at home. Furthermore, she also has problems with her friends like before they started high school they went to this party and Melinda called the police and everybody was mad,.and then she has this teacher Mr.Neck who is racist and he's very rude to Melinda(Anderson).…

    • 162 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the book, Melinda has problems with her family. She is having trouble making friends at her high school, Merryweather.Her family doesn’t really talk to her, and they don’t really communicate at all with her family..Her family is disappointed in her because of her grades and test results.Furthermore, she has problems with her friends because she called the cops on them, and now they all hate her. Even worse, she has problems with her teachers.Her Spanish teacher is giving her problems, but she can’t even speak Spanish, so it’s…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    "Speak" Book Report

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I rate this book a perfect 10 because of the amount of interest I had while reading it. This book is written for young adult and is great for those who could relate to the same situation as Melinda. This is the kind of book that you would not want to put down once you start reading it. This book also makes a…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book “Speak”, Melinda grows from being honest with herself about her emotions. From this, she began to think positively, which changed her mindset and her behaviour. Melinda also was able to seek help from others. After going through these three stages, honesty, positivity, and finding outside support, Melinda was able to refine herself throughout the story and become an improved version of herself. It is impossible for one to change overnight, and starting with small actions of growth can lead to the achievement of a renewed version of…

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Heather is the ‘new girl’ from Ohio who wants to find her clan and social standing in the school. Throughout the story Speak, she’s shown as the friend who uses their friendship more than how much she cares about her friendship. Heather is shown throughout the book to be proven guilty as a bad friend. To begin, Heather doesn’t care about anyone else except herself. During the duration of the book, Heather doesn’t ask about Melinda’s problems furthermore help her with her problems. For instance, when Melinda and Heather were sitting outside the cafeteria eating lunch, Heather mentions about their friendship. “You [Melinda] do not like anything. You [Melinda] are the most depressed person I [Heather] have ever met, and excuse me for saying this but…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Speak Writing Assignment

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the book Speak Melinda had many topics in each of her many passages. These passages help us find out what type of a person Melinda is and what her character is all about. The entire book is narrated by Melinda. In the beginning we find out that she busted a party by calling the cops during the summer right before high school. Everyone thought she was a rat. Little do we know is that she never spoken up that at the party Andy Evans raped Melinda. During her freshman year nobody likes her and she had no friends. We do not understand anything until half way through the book which makes this book a mystery. Each of the passages reveal something and we find more and more out about Melinda as the book goes on. Some passages were more important than others. I believe that the most important passage in Speak is “Giving Thanks”. I believe that “Giving Thanks” is the most important passage in the book because we find many things out about Melinda and her family’s relationship. In the beginning of the passage Melinda says how her mother is going to work as usual and that her father was going to order pizza, for Thanksgiving. She wakes up the next morning and noticed that her mother didn’t leave yet and her mother was making a Thanksgiving meal. Unfortunately things had gone wrong and they had to get rid of the turkey. Her father tried making soup which was awful apparently. At the end of the passage Melinda was correct; they were going to order a pizza. And that was what they did. The writer tries to explain in this passage is that Melinda and her parents do not have the greatest relationship and this passage reveals a lot that her life in ways is predictable. I chose this passage because it was interesting to me that Melinda had predicted the whole day which didn’t even happen yet. She ended up having pizza on Thanksgiving which isn’t the greatest thing to eat on Thanksgiving. This passage was very ironic since Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. In ways this…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Melinda has found her voice over the course of the bok and grows socially because of it. In the beginning Melinda was a social outcast.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Speak is a teen novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson, it’s the story of freshman Melinda Sordino. Everybody in her high school doesn’t like her because last summer she went to a party and called the cops. Ever since she doesn’t speak and has no friends because she doesn't want to tell anybody the truth. She later on gets the courage to say something because one of her ex-best friends is going out with popular senior named Andy Evans. We find out later in the book that Melinda was raped by Andy at the party. That is why she called the cops. The book is about Melinda trying to accept the fact that she was raped and needs help. It is also about her struggling to try and fit in while dealing with her school, home problems and friends.…

    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    speak by Lauren anderson

    • 670 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Speak by Laurie Anderson, is the type of book that makes you really think about the choices you will have in your life. It is about friendship, and how art is the only way you can really express yourself. Speak has all the parts for a successful “teen” drama. It has suspense that makes your eyes want to fly across the page, back and forth until you know what, why, and how the book turns out in the end. I have read almost one third of the book and I now know a lot about Melinda life and why she so isolated and insecure. Melinda is still struggling with the secrete she been keeping inside her, she is constantly being urged to speak, often by celebrities she imagines talking to her. For example, when Melinda feverishly imagines daytime talk show hosts giving her advice, she hears Jerry Springer telling her, "Speak up […], Melinda, I can't hear you!" (76.6). the real people in Melinda's life are also urging her to talk. Mr. Freeman, Melinda's art teacher, is the only adult who can clearly see that Melinda is holding a secret that's tearing her apart. He encourages her to express her emotions through art and to speak her secrets out loud.…

    • 670 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Speak:writing style

    • 324 Words
    • 1 Page

    Speak is written with the intent of drawing the reader in and initiating the gut feeling which we learned is created with the use of metafiction. Anderson writes the whole book in present tense and from Melinda’s point of view. The grammar she uses is casual and is written how a typical teenager would talk. The dialogue within Melinda’s head is sarcastic and vivid, starkly contrasting the introverted facade she erects to protect herself. This insight into her mind evokes sympathy for Melinda and a connection to a character that doesn’t really exist.…

    • 324 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Melinda didn’t feel loved which made her hurt herself by biting her lip and feeling depressed. The author stated in the book “I bit my lip clear through. It needs stitches” (Anderson 136). Melinda’s situation is so serious that it made Melinda pass out and get stitches on her head. The book stated “David says I hit my head on the edge of the table on my way down. I need stitches” (Anderson 81). Melinda found a closet which she keeps coming back to because she wants to be all alone. In the book it said, “This closet is abandoned-it has no purpose,no name.” Melinda doesn’t have anyone to express her feelings with which leads to her…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Speak

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the movie Speak Melinda was raped by this guy by named Addy at a party, she was reluctant to talk to anyone about what happened because she was so traumatized, and everyone hated her for calling the cops. She was mad at herself for not being able to do anything about it. So she resorted to silence, so that she doesn't have to bring back the horrible memories she was trying to forget even though all she had to do was speak. In fact, if Melinda had told the truth immediately the rape occurred, everyone would have believed her. We all know that speaking the truth sounds easy but it can sometimes be hard, just like in Melinda's case. But what Melinda did not understand was that when secrets like this are kept they can eat away at your esteem and your confidence. She enters high school friendless and people stare and call her names she demonstrates sense of not being believed, sleep disruption, and depression.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    She also faces obstacles at home where “she thinks that she is just a huge disappointment and that her parents would have been divorced if she had not born” (Anderson 70). When she gets to school she finds all of these “clans that everyone is in like the Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of American, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, and Shredders” (Anderson 4). She says she is an Outcast and that there are no points for looking at her ex-friends since the whole incident happened. One of the things that many of the people in Merryweather High School don’t know about, is what happened to Melinda, during the whole party was that she got raped and then they started hating her because they didn’t know what happened for her to call the cops. She had to face many emotional obstacles after the party because she kept having flashbacks on when Andy Evans raped her. She has been through an emotional journey to overcome the fear of being raped. She was drunk and barely conscious. Whenever she is in the same place as Andy she becomes traumatized and remembers everything that happened to her that night where she was drunk. The flashback haunted her, she found her way after she felt that she needed to tell someone about the incident she had with…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays