Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

October 19, 2008 at 8:29 am (Uncategorized)

In the book Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story about an outcast teenage girl named Melinda Sordino, who overcomes numerous barriers in his adolescence life. Throughout the story, Melinda overcomes numerous unbearable conflicts. Three main conflicts that Melinda overcomes throughout the story are friendship problems, family problems, and lastly, her own personality

As Melinda became a high school student, she had numerous heartbreaking conflicts between her friends. Most of her friends left Melinda ever since she reached fluorescent adolescence. She becomes an outcast. All of her old friends never talks to her. In fact, they even talk behind Melinda’s back. “She turns her back to me and laughs with her friends” This proves how Melinda was constantly bullied. Melinda was once raped by another guy in a party. However, she didn’t tell anyone about it, due to the fact that it might jeopardise her even more of becoming an outcast. Later on in the story, Melinda speak up and tell her old friends about the fact that she was raped. This became a turning point of her life. Her friends felt remorseful for Melinda. Overall, Melinda overcame her first conflict.

The word “family” means closely related people, who care and love each other. A teenage girl, who is going through adolescence, needs a constant care from her family. However, for Melinda, her family was more symbolic rather than people who care about her. In the book, Melinda mentions that “My family doesn’t talk much and we have nothing in common”. This proves that for Melinda, her family was just a symbol. Melinda overcome this barrier at the end. She overcome her barrier by telling her parents why she was very quiet.

Melinda was once sexually abused. Ever since that incidence, she isolated herself from the society, and kept her emotion to herself. She tries to express it to the society; however, as an outcast, she didn’t have the courage to tell the others.Despite of the fact that she was an outcast, she overcomes her personality barrier by using all of her courage to tell her family and even to her friends, about her emotions and about the incident at the party. She overcomes her personal barrier again by speaking up to her society.

Melinda had numerous challenges to overcome. She had to overcome friendship problems, family problems, and lastly, her own personality. However, all of these conflicts were overcame by Melinda speaking out. I believe that the reason why the book is named “speak” is because,Melinda overcomes all of her barriers by speaking out. Melinda overcame her barriers successfully