Find out what happens in our Chapter 25 summary for Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This free study guide is stuffed with the juicy details and important facts you need to know. Michelle Wong Mr. Azucena English 5 23 October 2015 Speak Essay In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, there are several important themes such as growth, speaking up for yourself, and depression. Melinda is a 9th grader who goes to Merryweather High School.

Laurie Halse Anderson – Speak Audiobook

https://ipaudio.club/wp-content/uploads/GOLN/Speak%20(Laurie%20Halse%20Anderson)/01.mp3https://ipaudio.club/wp-content/uploads/GOLN/Speak%20(Laurie%20Halse%20Anderson)/02.mp3https://ipaudio.club/wp-content/uploads/GOLN/Speak%20(Laurie%20Halse%20Anderson)/03.mp3https://ipaudio.club/wp-content/uploads/GOLN/Speak%20(Laurie%20Halse%20Anderson)/04.mp3https://ipaudio.club/wp-content/uploads/GOLN/Speak%20(Laurie%20Halse%20Anderson)/05.mp3text

Melinda Sordino begins her fresher year at Merryweather Senior high school in Syracuse, New York, with a heavy secret weighing on her. Over the summer, she as well as her friends went to an event and also Melinda wound up calling the police, creating her friends and also everybody at the celebration to socially decline her. Melinda’s only buddy is Heather, a new pupil, that attempts to obtain Melinda involved in her systems to gain appeal.

Melinda, nevertheless, is not curious about gaining appeal and also spends much of her time in an abandoned janitor’s storage room at school. Laurie Halse Anderson – Speak Audiobook Free. She has taken some late passes, so she makes use of the storage room as a hideout to stay clear of educators she disapproval and unpleasant interactions with her previous close friends. Her only relief at institution is art course, where she is working with a year-long project to develop numerous analyses of a tree. In the school corridors, she periodically sees IT, a name she has actually offered to elderly Andy Evans, and she slowly begins to face what he did to her. Whenever he sees her, he antagonizes her in manner ins which make her experience her preliminary experience with him. She grows more sorrowful and also ditches whole days of institution. Her parents and assistance therapist attempt to get her to open concerning her bad scholastic efficiency, yet Melinda refuses to talk with them. However, over numerous months of unpleasant silence and self-harm in the form of lip- and also nail-biting, Melinda finally admits to herself that Andy Evans raped her at the celebration last summertime.

After dealing with the reality that she was raped, Melinda begins to recover from the trauma of the occasion. She is stressed over Andy Evans’ objectives for her previous best friend, Rachel, and also finally tells Rachel what took place to her. While Rachel does not believe Melinda, Melinda begins to feel free after speaking up. She takes up new leisure activities, like lawn work, and gains confidence in her attempts at producing a vivid tree for art class. She no longer counts on Heather’s false friendship and begins to reconnect with her previous close friend Ivy. As the academic year involves an end, Melinda is forced to face Andy once again when he corners her in her custodian’s closet. She safeguards herself and also acquires the respect of the school as several various other women have likewise suffered Andy’s attacks calmly. She ends the year by completing her tree and also sharing what has actually happened to her with her art educator, Mr. Freeman.
The narrator misses biology course because she can’t find it. English class is shown by a lady with “no face” (2.1) whom Melinda calls Hairwoman. Social Studies class is instructed by an instructor Melinda calls Mr. Neck. Lunch is bad. The issue of having no one to rest with is fixed when a guy called Basketball Pole hits Melinda with mashed potatoes, triggering her to take off. Mr. Neck stops her, as well as because she can’t inform him why she’s leaving, she enters difficulty.

Next stop: Art class. Much better. Another old buddy, Ivy, is here, yet she and also Melinda do not make eye contact. Mr. Freeman, the art educator, states that they remain in “the only course that will certainly show [them] just how to make it through” (4.3 ). Everybody draws slips of paper from a damaged globe Mr. Freeman passes around. Whatever gets on the paper is what they’ll be working on for the year. Melinda’s paper says “tree.”.

Institution has actually been in session for 2 weeks and also Melinda has actually been consuming lunch with a girl named Heather and also periodically going to Heather’s home. Heather yaps, and also Melinda states bit. Today Melinda is residence after institution buying pizza, given that Mother goes to work at Effert’s, a clothing shop. When she hears Papa return, she slips off to her area. In the mirror across from her bed, she sees she’s not looking so good. Her lips are attacked– she can’t help biting them– and also her mouth does not appear like her mouth anymore. She places the mirror in the storage room.

Melinda has health club with Heather and Nicole. Nicole utilized to be in her “clan,” the Level Janes, in addition to Rachel as well as Ivy. It’s not clear whether Nicole is mad at Melinda, or just too soaked up in her very own life to speak to her. Someday, Melinda comes across Rachel in the shower room as well as attempts to speak to her. Rachel, who is calling herself Rachelle, just brushes her off, entrusting a fx trainee Melinda calls Greta-Ingrid.

On another day, Melinda is ranging from Mr. Neck, and also she occurs on a janitor’s closet that hasn’t been utilized in a long period of time. Listeb Speak Audiobook Online by Laurie Halse Anderson. Perfect hiding area. At some time after, Heather talks Melinda into mosting likely to a pep rally. Some girls acknowledge her as Melinda Sordino, the lady that called the polices at Kyle Rodgers end-of-the-summer party. She gets jabbed, kneed, hair-pulled, and also lowered the bleachers before it’s throughout.

At supper one evening, Mom and Dad jump on Melinda’s instance because they’ve seen her progress reports, as well as she can do better. They deal with when Melinda leaves the table. Melinda makes a decision to attempt. She’s concentrating in science course. Her teacher, Ms. Keen, is rather dazzling. So is Melinda’s lab companion, David Petrakis. Mr. Stetman, Melinda’s algebra teacher, is additionally very smart, however he can not seem to persuade the course of why they need algebra.

Heather signs up with the Marthas, a team dedicated to charity as well as designing. The Marthas– Meg, Emily, as well as Siobhan– make Heather embellish the faculty lounge for Thanksgiving. Heather convinces Melinda to help her. When Siobhan as well as Emily enter into the lounge to check it out, they aren’t pleased to see Melinda. Heather states Melinda is the very first person at institution to speak to her. Siobhan says, “She’s weird. What’s wrong with her lips? She resembles she’s got a disease or something” (21.19 ). Melinda runs away to the shower room, weeping. She tries to wash away her face functions.

Sometime hereafter, Melinda sees a person she calls “IT.” IT is offering Melinda the smile and also the wink. Melinda would certainly throw up, except her “lips are sewn together” (22.2 ). The very first area ends with Melinda’s progress report. She obtains an A in Art, a B in Biology, a C as well as a D in Lunch and also Garments, and also Cs in the majority of everything else.
Melinda, a secondary school fresher, is the protagonist in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. The summer before starting senior high school, she was raped by an elderly student, Andy Evans. As a result of her injury and also lack of ability to tell any individual regarding what occurred, Melinda spirals into a dark depression; sheds her capacity to speak with ease; and also can share her discomfort only with physical acts, such as attacking her lips as well as nails. Melinda’s self-contemplation as well as devotion to her art allow her to expand and at some point see herself as a survivor as opposed to a target. She finds out that the only way to respond to wickedness is to speak out against it.

Adolescence

As a coming of age novel, Speak has a strong focus on adolescence and the problems and desires associated with it. Despite Melinda's unusually traumatic experiences, almost every reader can connect to the world she lives in. Melinda lists the cliques that the ninth grade class has broken into: 'Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders' (4), familiar high school groups. Many readers will also understand Melinda's feeling of adolescent social isolation. Her negative reactions to certain aspects of the school day, such as gym class ('Gym class should be illegal. It is humiliating' [18]) and lunch ('Nothing good ever happens at lunch. The cafeteria is a giant sound stage where they film daily segments of Teenage Humiliation Rituals. And it smells gross' [104]), are not unique to someone suffering from post-traumatic stress. Furthermore, Melinda exhibits a typical adolescent reaction to authority figures and rejects them by giving them ridiculous nicknames.

The theme of adolescence connects Melinda to the real world. Not only does it make her story easier to relate to, but it also makes it broadly applicable. Melinda's extraordinary circumstances just highlight the universal difficulties of adolescence--not just the social problems, but the conflicting pulls between the future adult self and the former child self. Melinda feels dismayed by the sexuality of her high school peers, largely because she is a victim of sexual violence, but also because she does not feel ready for this next phase of life. Coming to terms with what happened to her allows her to finally accept that she is entering this new stage, and look forward to her future.

Communication

Much of Melinda's life revolves around communication or lack thereof. In the novel, we witness various forms of communication: sticky notes on the kitchen counter, notebooks passed between students, letters left on school lockers, words on the chalkboard, recording devices, telephone calls, and spoken conversations. Melinda's communication is mostly non-verbal. She expresses anxiousness and fear by biting her lip or running away. She asks her parents for favors by writing them notes. Even when she speaks, she often does not say what she wants to. When Heather tells Melinda that they can no longer be friends, Melinda says, 'I try to think of something bitchy, something wicked and cruel. I can't' (105). Of course, the most major communication conflict in the novel involves Melinda's need to tell someone about the rape. It is not until the Fourth Marking Period that Melinda finds the courage to say anything. Interestingly, however, in this initial confession of her secret, she still does not speak. Instead, she passes a note to Rachel explaining the night of the party. Even after her second attack, when the entire school learns of her history with Andy Evans, Melinda still has not spoken, the lacrosse team has. It is not until the very last line of the novel that we understand Melinda is going to finally tell her story out loud. The ultimate communication in the story is distinctly left out of the novel, making the theme even more apparent.

Depression

Laurie Halse Anderson once said in an interview, 'I've learned that Speak is not just a book about rape. Speak is a book about depression.' Depression is the unspoken theme that defines Melinda's behavior for much of the novel. While she does exhibit some obvious external signs, such as cutting her wrist with a paperclip, much of Melinda's depression is internal and is not fully understood by anyone, including herself. Her behavior issues stem from her depression and her lack of desire to actively engage in her life. Her lip chewing habit acts similarly to cutting her wrist: the physical pain from biting her lips helps her to temporarily forget her emotional pain and is a physical expression of her self-hatred. Because of Melinda's strong internal voice, it is clear that she is not a naturally weak person. To the contrary, she is witty and smart, astutely observing those around her. Thus Speak can be seen not as the story of a girl growing stronger, but of an already strong girl overcoming depression.

Female Empowerment

Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson touches on the theme of female empowerment throughout the novel. Melinda chooses to do a report on suffragettes for extra credit in Mr. Neck's class. However, at the last minute, Mr. Neck informs Melinda that she must read her report in front of the entire class. Horrified at this prospect, Melinda devises a plan in which she likens herself to a suffragette and stands up for her right to not give speeches. In doing this, Anderson directly connects Melinda to the theme of female empowerment. More importantly, she distinguishes Melinda's behavior from those of strong female leaders. After Melinda receives a 'D' on the report, David Petrakis says, 'But you got it wrong. The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win.' Melinda's struggle to speak is a struggle to break free of female voicelessness, and to actually emulate these strong female role models, who gained a voice in politics for all women.

Gender Roles/Sexuality

Speak Laurie Halse Anderson Sparknotes

Speak frequently defines gender roles in the most obvious and traditional way. Melinda's mother, despite her lack of cooking abilities, insists on cooking Thanksgiving dinner to fulfill her role as a wife and mother. The Marthas are a group of girls who idolize Martha Stewart and engage in community service and homemaking activities. Heather plays into female sexuality by pursuing a job as a bathing suit model, with an adult male photographer encouraging her to be sexier. Melinda pays acute attention to these gender roles and to the idea of the female as a sexual object. For example, Melinda's janitor closet has been abandoned since the new janitor's lounge opened. Melinda says, 'All the girls avoid [the new lounge] because of the way [the janitors] stare and whistle softly when we walk by' (26). In art class, she notices Picasso's proclivity for painting women in the nude and after concludes, 'Naked women is art, naked men a no-no, I bet' (119). The fact that she thinks Rachel will only like Andy more if she calls him dangerous emphasizes how she associates these gender roles with sexual violence. It is thus understandable that her dislike of gender roles is stronger than the typical high school student. It also helps explain why she is so reluctant to grow up--if growing up means having to be encapsulated in the accepted female gender role, she isn't interested.

Memory

Memory and Melinda's inability to forget what happened in August feature prominently in Speak. Melinda continually talks about trying to erase her memory by being silent. Furthermore, throughout the novel, we witness Melinda reconstructing her memory of what happened at the party. She begins the novel unable to say Andy Evans' name. By the spring she is finally able to admit to herself that she was raped. Physical evidence of this memory reconstruction comes with Melinda's written confession to Rachel. She at first writes 'hurt,' but immediately crosses it out and replaces it with the word 'rape.' Thus when Melinda regains her voice, she is also finally ready to remember. She realizes that remembering, though painful--like cutting sick limbs off a tree--is necessary for healing and growth.

Growth

Speak Laurie Halse Anderson Theme

Plants are a major motif in the novel, used to symbolize the importance and the difficulty of growth. In art class, Melinda is assigned 'tree' as the object with which she will be working for the remainder of the school year. Her connection with trees grows stronger near the end of the novel, when she begins obsessively raking leaves from her front yard. Her father calls the arborists to have dead branches removed from the family's oak tree. After hearing her father explain the purpose of this to a passerby, Melinda decides she needs to trim her own dead branches, which will be painful, but which will allow her to regain her health and to grow. Trees are not the only plant that play a role in Melinda's life--after using apples to study reproduction in biology class, Melinda studies and is fascinated by the botanic reproductive process, and specifically by how many obstacles and dangers seeds face in transitioning from seed to plant, as she does in turning from child to adult. Later in the novel, she asks her dad to buy her seeds so that she can garden in her yard, showing that she finally has a desire to grow.