BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Laurie Halse. 1999. Speak. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 0142407321
SUMMARY
Melinda Sordino was a popular and outgoing girl until the summer after her eight grade year where she was raped by a popular high school athlete at a party. Melinda, in a panic, calls the police, who break up the party and arrest several of the partygoers for underage intoxication. When faced with the police and given the opportunity to tell what has happened to her, Melinda finds she has no voice. She leaves the party known as the girl who called the police. She enters high school an outcast, her friends will not acknowledge her and the rest of the school treats her as a leper. She no longer cares about her appearance or trying to blend into high school society. Her grades slip and her relationship with her parents becomes strained, because she will not tell them what is wrong. She moves through her classes trying to go unnoticed and creates a sanctuary for herself in an abandoned janitor’s closet. She is given an art project by her unorthodox art teacher; she must draw the image of a tree by the end of the semester and she struggles with the concept. What is a tree to her? Over the course of the novel, Miranda begins to branch out; she makes a new friend in a boy who defends her in class. She begins to reach out to her old friends, especially when her former best friend starts seeing the boy who raped her. She reveals to Rachel what happened and Rachel rejects Melinda’s claim, at first. Finally, at the end of the novel, Melinda finds her voice. She speaks out against people using her to their advantage, and she is forced to confront the boy who raped her. Melinda does not reclaim her former persona of popular girl and merge into an acceptable social group, but becomes a new person who can express her feelings and explore new relationships with friends and prospective boyfriends.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
In Anderson’s emotionally charged novel Speak, Melinda Sordino enters high school as the girl who called the police at a party. She has gone from popular to a social pariah. The student body of Melinda’s high school is divided into various social cliques, such as the jocks, the exchange students, the Marthas, the cheerleades, etc.; even the losers have their own section of the cafeteria in which to congregate. Melinda is separate even from them. She watches her old friends merge into separate groups, all of them ignoring her along with the rest of the school. Melinda’s ability to voice feelings and opinions vanished with her virginity over the summer, and without a voice Melinda feels powerless and without presence.
Anderson uses strong descriptions and diction choices to convey Melinda’s pain, depression, and frustration at her inability to speak. When she tries to talk about what happened to her at the party, explain her actions to a student who is angry that her older brother was arrested that night, her “throat squeezes shut, as if two hands of black fingernails are clamped on [her] windpipe.” Readers can physically feel what is happening to Melinda through Anderson’s words. Scenes and settings are described vividly, touching upon all five senses, but most importantly, Anderson makes us feel Melinda’s inner turmoil as something physical. When Melinda sits at a lunch table beside her temporary friend of convenience, Heather, a new girl from Ohio, and the boy who raped her—often referred to as IT or Andy Beast—presses up against her while he talks to another girl. She leans forward into the lunch table to avoid his touch and the “table saws [her] in half.”
Anderson tells the story in first person, making the story more immediate and personal. Melinda’s voice is clever, her dark humor and sarcasm when describing events and actions are as amusing as they are heart-breaking at times, for her humor and sarcasm are often used as defense mechanisms when she cannot cope with her situation. Melinda’s character is relatable to young audiences and even older audiences who remember being in high school and what an awkward period of time it was. Everyone wants to fit in; needs to fit in. There is a strong emphasis put on conformity, but Melinda can no longer conform.
Miranda’s bedroom symbolizes her moratorium. It has remained the same since she was in fifth grade when she and her best friend Rachel had their rooms decorated in the same way. To redecorate would be a statement of Melinda’s moving forward, a symbol of the emergence of a new Melinda. Keeping the room the same conveys Melinda’s stagnation. She cannot move forward until she has a catharsis, until she can reveal the truth aloud to another person.
Prolonged dialogue in the work is written in stage play format with a character’s name followed by colons and then speech. Everyone has a role to play with predetermined dialogue, but Melinda’s lines are blank. She cannot read what is on her script, nor can she voice it. Melinda does claim to be an actor, because she can give false smiles, but she cannot successfully play a role in her high school society if she cannot voice her opinions and emotions.
Anderson divides Speak into short titled segments and scenes that are snapshots of Melinda’s daily life. Not every snapshot involves exciting, moving action, but readers are allowed insight into Melinda’s world and can easily relate to her frustrations and annoyances in the classroom. Her teachers all have distinct personalities, from the bigoted Mr. Neck who hosts debates where no opinion is right but his own to the free-spirited Mr. Freeman, an art teacher who encourages Melinda to express herself through art. It is in his class that Melinda begins to reconnect with one of her old friends, Ivy.
Over the course of the novel, readers will experience Melinda’s internal and external struggle to deal with her own emotions and feelings of rejection and come to terms with what has happened to her. A change, a new inner strength starts to grow in Melinda near the end of the novel as she plants seeds and seriously contemplates her art project for Mr. Freeman’s class. When her temporary friend of convenience Heather comes over after brutally breaking off their friendship in favor of hanging out with more popular girls, Melinda is able to dismiss her. She will not let herself be used anymore. Though, she still cannot talk about what IT has done to her, when she sees that IT is dating her friend Rachel, Melinda is able to express her feelings about IT through writing on the bathroom wall. She is later empowered when she returns to the bathroom to see that other girls have responded in agreement with her message. She is able to write a note to Rachel and tell her what happened between her and IT.
The most powerful scene in the novel is when IT invades that sanctuary Melinda has set up in an abandoned janitor’s closet within the school. IT confronts her for telling Rachel about the rape, and Melinda is able to scream the word “No.” She is able to physically fight him off, holding a piece of glass to his neck, and calmly say, “I said no.” Her voice and her strength returns, and this time it is the boy who cannot speak.
Anderson takes readers on an emotional journey. Readers will care and ache for Melinda and cheer for her when she finally finds her inner strength and voice to speak out. She even decides to redecorate her room, moving forward to express who she had become. Young readers will enjoy reading, relating and discussing this wonderful piece by Laurie Halse Anderson.
REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Since the beginning of the school year, high school freshman Melinda has found that it's been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud: "My throat is always sore, my lips raw.... Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.... It's like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis." What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors' big end-of-summer party? Or maybe it's because her parents' only form of communication is Post-It notes written on their way out the door to their nine-to-whenever jobs. While Melinda is bothered by these things, deep down she knows the real reason why she's been struck mute...
Laurie Halse Anderson's first novel is a stunning and sympathetic tribute to the teenage outcast. The triumphant ending, in which Melinda finds her voice, is cause for cheering (while many readers might also shed a tear or two). After reading Speak, it will be hard for any teen to look at the class scapegoat again without a measure of compassion and understanding for that person--who may be screaming beneath the silence. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert, Amazon.com Review
In a stunning first novel, Anderson uses keen observations and vivid imagery to pull readers into the head of an isolated teenager. Divided into the four marking periods of an academic year, the novel, narrated by Melinda Sordino, begins on her first day as a high school freshman. No one will sit with Melinda on the bus. At school, students call her names and harass her; her best friends from junior high scatter to different cliques and abandon her. Yet Anderson infuses the narrative with a wit that sustains the heroine through her pain and holds readers' empathy. A girl at a school pep rally offers an explanation of the heroine's pariah status when she confronts Melinda about calling the police at a summer party, resulting in several arrests. But readers do not learn why Melinda made the call until much later: a popular senior raped her that night and, because of her trauma, she barely speaks at all. Only through her work in art class, and with the support of a compassionate teacher there, does she begin to reach out to others and eventually find her voice. Through the first-person narration, the author makes Melinda's pain palpable: "I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special." Though the symbolism is sometimes heavy-handed, it is effective. The ending, in which her attacker comes after her once more, is the only part of the plot that feels forced. But the book's overall gritty realism and Melinda's hard-won metamorphosis will leave readers touched and inspired. Ages 12-up.--Publishers Weekly.
Grade 8 Up-This powerful novel deals with a difficult yet important topic-rape. Melinda is just starting high school. It should be one of the greatest times in her life, but instead of enjoying herself, she is an outcast. She has been marked as the girl who called the police to break up the big end-of-the-summer party, and all the kids are angry at her. Even her closest friends have pulled away. No one knows why she made the call, and even Melinda can't really articulate what happened. As the school year goes on, her grades plummet and she withdraws into herself to the point that she's barely speaking. Her only refuge is her art class, where she learns to find ways to express some of her feelings. As her freshman year comes to an end, Melinda finally comes to terms with what happened to her-she was raped at that party by an upperclassman who is still taunting her at school. When he tries again, she finds her voice, and her classmates realize the truth. The healing process will take time, but Melinda no longer has to deal with it alone. Anderson expresses the emotions and the struggles of teenagers perfectly. Melinda's pain is palpable, and readers will totally empathize with her. This is a compelling book, with sharp, crisp writing that draws readers in, engulfing them in the story.--Dina Sherman, Brooklyn Children's Museum, NY, SLJ
Grade 8 Up-A ninth grader becomes a social pariah when she calls the police to bust a summer bash and spends the year coming to terms with the secret fact that she was raped during the party. A story told with acute insight, acid wit, and affecting prose.--Library Journal.
Having broken up an end-of-summer party by calling the police, high-school freshman Melinda Sordino begins the school year as a social outcast. She's the only person who knows the real reason behind her call: she was raped at the party by Andy Evans, a popular senior at her school. Slowly, with the help of an eccentric and understanding art teacher, she begins to recover from the trauma, only to find Andy threatening her again. Melinda's voice is distinct, unusual, and very real as she recounts her past and present experiences in bitterly ironic, occasionally even amusing vignettes. In her YA fiction debut, Anderson perfectly captures the harsh conformity of high-school cliques and one teen's struggle to find acceptance from her peers. Melinda's sarcastic wit, honesty, and courage make her a memorable character whose ultimate triumph will inspire and empower readers. --Debbie Carton, Booklist
A frightening and sobering look at the cruelty and viciousness that pervade much of contemporary high school life, as real as today's headlines. At the end of the summer before she enters high school, Melinda attends a party at which two bad things happen to her. She gets drunk, and she is raped. Shocked and scared, she calls the police, who break up the party and send everyone home. She tells no one of her rape, and the other students, even her best friends, turn against her for ruining their good time. By the time school starts, she is completely alone, and utterly desolate. She withdraws more and more into herself, rarely talking, cutting classes, ignoring assignments, and becoming more estranged daily from the world around her. Few people penetrate her shell; one of them is Mr. Freeman, her art teacher, who works with her to help her express what she has so deeply repressed. When the unthinkable happensthe same upperclassman who raped her at the party attacks her againsomething within the new Melinda says no, and in repelling her attacker, she becomes whole again. The plot is gripping and the characters are powerfully drawn, but it is its raw and unvarnished look at the dynamics of the high school experience that makes this a novel that will be hard for readers to forget. (Fiction. 12+) -- Kirkus Reviews
An uncannily funny book even as it plumbs the darkness, Speak will hold readers from first word to last. -- The Horn Book, starred review
Melinda's sarcastic wit, honesty, and courage make her a memorable character whose ultimate triumph will inspire and empower readers. -- Booklist, starred review
The plot is gripping and the characters are powerfully drawn...its raw and unvarnished look...will be hard for readers to forget. -- Kirkus Reviews, pointer review
--A 2000 Printz Honor Book
--A 1999 National Book Award Finalist
--An Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist
--A 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
--Winner of the SCBWI Golden Kite Award
--An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
--An ALA Quick Pick
--A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
--A Booklist Top Ten First Novel of 1999
--A BCCB Blue Ribbon Book
--A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
--A Horn Book Fanfare Title --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
--1999 National Book Award Finalist
--School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
--Booklist Editors' Choice
CONNECTIONS
Young readers who enjoy reading stories about young outcasts coping with life at school and/or who have had traumatic experiences they must learn to cope with may be interested in the following titles:
Jones, Patrick. 2006. Nailed. New York: Walker Books for Young Readers. ISBN 9780802780775
Zarr, Sarah. 2008. The Story of a Girl. New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0316014540
Potter, Ellen. 2009. Slob. New York: Philomel. ISBN 978-0399247057
No comments:
Post a Comment