Essay for Speak

You are the only outcast in your entire school because of calling the police at a summer drinking party in the August before your freshman year. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson that is the life of a teenage girl named Melinda Sordino. She has to go through this because no one knows the real reason why she made that call.

There is a lot of symbolism in this book that is related to how Melinda was raped at a summer drinking party and how the plot line falls into the mode of literature of tragedy which is the first thing that I noticed in this book. In Speak there is a conflict, a tragic fall, but in the end there is life symbolism. In the beginning of the book one reason why Speak is a tragedy is no one talks to Melinda on the first day of school. The story has a tragic fall toward the end of the book when she gets attacked again. Finally in the end she says that she can't run away from what happened, it wasn't her fault and that she was too young and didn't know what was going on. She also said she wasn't going to let it kill and that she can grow which is the life symbolism. I thought that the plot line of this book went so well because of all the symbolism.

In Speak there is a few symbols.one reason is how Melinda never looks in a mirror or anything Another strong symbolism takes place when she is making a snow angel in the winter time. Melinda is laying in the snow with a scarf over her mouth and everything was completely silent. Then wind rattles some tree branches above her and all of a sudden the scarf is too tight and it reminds her of what happened last summer. She is starts to have a panic attack. A third symbol about Melinda is when she makes a turkey sculpture in art class. She takes a doll head and puts duct tape over the mouth and then puts it inside of the turkey's rib cage. That showed how she was trapped and didn't want to tell anyone about the drinking party.

In the end she opens the closet door, because it symbolizes how she has nothing to hide anymore. Melinda overcoming her fears makes Speak one of the best books I have ever read. I liked the use of symbolism throughout the book and how it added to the plot line to make this a great tragedy.