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Speak
Melinda is running late for school. She's already missed the school bus, and her mother has made it abundantly clear that she won't drive Melinda to school, so Melinda has no choice but to walk...
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Speak
There are probably many characters that you could probably include in a list of people that caused Melinda trauma in one way or another; however, there is one character that should make every list....
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Speak
The "coming of age" tradition is part of a cultural construct that focuses on the transition form childhood to adulthood. Most coming of age stories in literature, as it occurs in Speak, describe...
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Speak
The first sign of depression in Speak is Melinda's insistence on being alone. She has lost her friends and does not try to make new ones. She will not speak to her parents or teachers unless...
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I had to edit down the original question. I invite you to resubmit the other part in a separate question as both really strike at the heart of Anderson's work. In the end, why Melinda is silent...
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Speak
In the Third Making Period, things continue to get worse for Melinda, who is ostracized by her peers for calling the police to a party before the start of the school year and struggles to cope with...
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Speak
Mr. Neck believes that "real Americans" are people who, like his own family, have been in this country since the time of the American Revolution. He says, "My family has been in this country for...
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Speak
Melinda Sordino is a traumatized teenager, who is struggling to cope with being sexually assaulted by an older boy named Andy Evans before her freshman year of high school. During the second...
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Speak
Figurative language is an effective tool in any piece of literature because it aids the author in illustrating thoughts, feelings and ideas. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is no exception. Marking...
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Melinda finds herself behaving like a rabbit in order to protect herself. In one such instance, she unexpectedly comes across her rapist Andy in a donut shop. Her immediate response is to stand...
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Speak
When Melinda returns to school, she often finds the academic aspects challenging and the social pressures and bullying unbearable. The first time she enters the closet, she is seeking an immediate,...
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Speak
Chapter 21 contains the section that has Heather admitting to Melinda that she asked her parents the previous month to send her to boarding school. Heather says that it was because she was so...
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Speak
David Petrakis is another student at Melinda’s high school. They are paired as lab partners. David seems to be one of Melinda’s few male friends. He is important both because she learns to admire...
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Speak
Merryweather High is an ironic name for a school attended by Melinda. The name conjures up images of sunny skies and carefree summer days. But there's nothing remotely carefree or sunny about...
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Speak
In the Fourth Marking Period, Melinda eventually begins to heal and come to terms with her traumatic experience the previous summer. After Melinda stands up to Heather, she feels confident enough...
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Speak
In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, protagonist Melinda Sordino enters her freshman year of high school with a dark secret. The entire school feels like a minefield to her, and it seems...
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Speak
Prom marks the turning point for Melinda in the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Melinda has finally begun to learn to speak up for herself, instead of closely guarding her privacy, and it's...
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Speak
The answer to your question can be found within the first few pages of the novel. Melinda has entered the Merryweather High auditorium for what seems to be the first assembly of the school year....
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Speak
Instances in Speak where Melinda begins to find her voice involve her actively defining herself against the world around her. Recognizing the inauthentic nature of people she used to consider as...
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Speak
Melinda's goals are pretty simple - she wants to survive. The story begins with the beginning of school, and Melinda's observations show the simplicity of her goal:"It is my first morning of...
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Speak
It isn't only the football team that gets stripped of the team name in this story: the entire school gets stripped of the team name and associated logo. This is actually a fairly funny part of the...
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Speak
I believe that this question is asking about an early chapter in the book titled "Our Fearless Leader." That leader is the principal of the school, and Melinda's name for him is "Principal...
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Speak is written from the first person perspective. Melinda is our narrator; therefore, we see and experience situations as she does. She's been raped, and her experiences at school are horrible....
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Speak
Quite simply, Melinda is a fourteen-year-old high school student whose life is dominated by the silence she creates for herself. She is miserable in her school life and as a result of being...
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Speak
"Speak" has numerous meanings in the novel. Most obviously, it refers literally to Melinda's inability to use oral speech after Andy rapes her. In addition, people who could speak but fail to do so...
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Speak
Melinda ultimately wants to find her voice and grow as a person. After being blamed for calling the police and ending a summer party, her classmates abandon and bully her. Melinda never revealed...
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Speak
Though Melinda is mistreated throughout the book, the reader doesn't find the reason for the mistreatment until near the end. Up to this point, readers can only guess why many of the adults and...
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Speak
Melinda Sordino was raped by Andy Evans at a summer party before her freshman year of high school and instinctively called the police, who broke up the party. Tragically, Melinda does not inform...
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Speak
The seven types of narrative conflict are Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Self, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Machine, and Man vs. Fate. In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the "man"...
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Speak
The setting of Speak is a high school in Syracuse, New York right before the turn of the twenty-first century. Setting is the landscape of a story. It includes the time period, the location, and...
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Speak
Melinda Sordino is portrayed as an outcast who remains isolated from her former friends and peers after suffering a traumatic incident the summer before her freshman year of high school. As a...
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Speak
"I know my head isn't screwed on straight. [This sentence may imply that she is capable of self-criticism, that she is self-reflective] I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy....
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Speak
Mr. Freeman is Melinda's art teacher. He refuses to grade the students and instead keeps track of the students' progress in a table painted onto the wall. He calls this "a necessary compromise."...
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Speak
Melinda Sordino, the protagonist of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, is not liked by her new schoolmates at Merryweather High School. Prior to her freshman year, Melinda had a close circle of...
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Speak
Interestingly enough, through her report on the suffragettes and the complex stand she takes on delivering it, Melinda shows that Mr. Neck's class content is far from straightforward. He teaches...
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Speak
The main character in the novel is the narrator, Melinda Sordino. She tells us of the trials she has as she starts high school after a disastrous summer where she lost her friends, confidence and...
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Speak
Beyond being called a fat white seed, Melinda mentions that the moon looked closer in August and during the rape, that the clouds cloaked the moon. The moon has several possible interpretations in...
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Speak
Melinda seeks places that will allow her to be anonymous. She finds the old unused janitor's closet and makes it her hideout. When she first enters it, she recognizes that no one has used it for...
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Speak
I absolutely loved it. I found the narrator to be darkly comedic, and I thought the author either had teenagers of her own or spent a great deal of time with teens, as the diction was spot on.
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If we are examining "diction" as speech that is reflective of upon word choice, then it seems to me that we would be looking for examples of how Melinda's diction, or choice of words, is reflective...
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In Speak, Heather's resolution is to find social acceptance. Heather is new to Merryweather High School. She has relocated to Syracuse from Ohio. She befriends Melinda because she is new, cannot...
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The narrator, Melinda Sordino, of the novel, Speak, conveys her apprehension of going to school on the first day of her freshman year. She has had a terrible summer because during a party, she...
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I am going to take this from beyond the text. A broken cosmetic mirror could represent Melinda. The cosmetic mirror is a symbol of beauty. People look in it to become more beautiful. The symbol...
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Interesting Muir quote and even more unique being able to tie it to Anderson's work. I think you would want to focus on the second part of the quote. The idea that individuals must understand...
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The original question had to be edited down. The presence of the tree at different points of the narrative helps to bring to light the issue of change, regrowth, and rebirth. The tree in winter...
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Speak
In many respects, the answer to this is dependent on how the reader perceives Melinda throughout the course of the novel. I have my own feelings about the protagonist, but I think you will have to...
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Mirrors are a constant symbol in Speak. Melinda hates mirrors because they remind her of what she perceives to be her ugliness. She hates them so much that she actually covers them up. She...
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Melinda's description of her room serves as an illustration of her isolation, one of the main themes of the book. Wherever she goes, and whatever she does, Melinda feels like an alien, like she...
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In Speak, the dialogue is written in Melinda's voice. In choosing to construct the dialogue this way, Anderson makes sure that we get to know her protagonist. We are able to hear Melinda "speak"...
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There are a couple of ways to interpret your question. If you are asking why the author chose to include an event such as rape in Speak, I believe she did so to illustrate the profound effect that...
