When thinking back to childhood memories, people often have a sense of nostalgia. The overwhelming feeling of wistfulness and comfort allows a person to look at the past in a positive light. However, sometimes people get so wrapped up in that feeling that those childhood memories turn into a way to run from problems and escape reality. In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, Melinda, struggles in school due to a traumatic experience she went through over the summer. As school starts again, she finds herself thinking back to her childhood in order to avoid her problems. While memories allow people to have a positive perception of the past, thinking back to them frequently leads to an unclear understanding of the present. Melinda’s …show more content…
She then reflects on how things used to be when she was younger. When talking about Rachel she thinks, “This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood my parents, who didn’t make fun of my bedroom. If there was anyone in the entire galaxy I am dying to tell what really happened, it’s Rachel” (Anderson 5). When Melinda was younger, life things were more simpler for her. She had a group of friends she could talk to and she wasn’t getting bullied at school. The author added the details of Melinda's past to convey the point that Melinda not only misses her old friends but her old lifestyle too. She misses having people and events to rely on. She also misses having a clear head. Melinda has always been a smart kid when she applies herself. In Algebra she finds herself struggling to grasp the concepts that are being taught. Math used to make her feel gifted and important: “I knew why I had to memorize my multiplication tables. [{...]} - all that was practical. Toolz eye kan yuz. It made so much sense I never thought about it. I did the work. Made honor roll.” (38) Melinda was already having a hard time dealing with the transition to high school, and math was making it …show more content…
When Melinda is decorating for Christmas, she attempts to bring back the happiness that she once felt when she was young. She takes herself back to a much simpler time when she and the other people in her life were happier. “The wet wool smells like first grade, walking to school on a cold morning with my milk money jangling in the tips of my mittens. [...] Mom worked at the jewelry counter and was home after school. Dad had a nicer boss and talked all the time about buying a boat. I believed in Santa Claus.” (71) By talking about her parent's old jobs and her first-grade mittens, it’s made clear that she has fond memories from her childhood; looking back reminds her how positive her life once was, and she wants to find a way for it to feel like that again. Flashbacks like these continue to happen as the story progresses and she finds herself thinking about the fun trips she and her family used to go on. “One time when I was little, my parents took me to an orchard. Daddy set me high in an apple tree. It was like falling up into storybook, yummy and red and leaf and the branch not shaking a bit. {...} The sun warmed my hair, and a wind pushed my mother into my father’s arms, and all the apple-picking parents and children smiled for a long, long minute.” (66) She is using her memories and flashbacks as an escape from her
Although she had been averse to the project given to her, she gradually began to like it. It was the only class she actually tried her best at, as an outlet to express herself, even if it was just the slightest bit. Over the next couple weeks, Melinda started to eat lunch with Heather and went on a couple trips to Heather’s home. The two formed an unhealthy friendship where Heather did about 90 percent of the talking, as she was much more social then Melinda. She wanted to be popular, however, which meant joining a one of the many cliques of high school.
Ashley has been extending her knowledge of math this year. She is continuing to work on concepts above grade level. Her facts are becoming faster and she is applying them in a variety of ways. She is feeling more and more confident in her skills and is always eager to learn more.
Near the end of the book, Melinda started standing up for herself and developing a new confidence. “I’m tough enough to play and strong enough to win.”(pg 170) For most of the book, Melinda always thought she was doing everything wrong “ I feel bad that I didn’t.” (pg 72) was a common theme for her. Melinda always did whatever people told her to do especially Heather “‘ I won’t help you.”’
But the reports I’ve been getting…well, what can we say?’” (Anderson 114). This meeting makes it clear that Melinda was previously an attentive student but as her mental health struggles got worse, her school life deteriorated as well. The principal states that last year—before her
Consequently, Melinda’s character is one which most teens relate to. Friendship is very important aspect of high school. In high school friendships start to change and so do people. People feel like they have to be cool and popular in high school and that's when everything starts to change for Melinda.
We know that all her ex-friends and a bunch of other kids are really mad at her. She also hints that something awful has happened to her, and she wants to tell somebody about it but can't. We find out that people are mad at Melinda because they hold her responsible for an end-of-summer party being busted. Melinda is physically and verbally assaulted at school on a semi-regular basis, prompting her to keep to herself more and more. We also learn that a bad thing happened to her at the party, and that's why she called the police.
Melinda feels a lot of emotions from the incident and has a little too much on her shoulders. While Melinda is trapped inside her thoughts, she confesses, “I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else,” (Anderson 51). Melinda has a lot of stress and this quote reflects the notion that teens become stagnant. Melinda started to become distant from school and her relationships which led to Melinda failing her classes, she went from being an A+ student to failing her classes, “MY REPORT CARD: Social Life F Social Studies F Spanish D Art
She is mentally struggling, and they cannot even tell because of how much they are not home. They do not even hear her out or ask why her grades are so low. They just assume that she is being lazy and not doing her work. This is an example of miscommunication because Melinda feels trapped inside her own mind, and her parents are expecting too much from her with the mental state that she is in at this time. In the play as well as the novel, the parents and the teenager do not communicate well with each other, and this causes the teenagers to feel alone, frustrated, and
At the end of the story she finally found her voice and was able to stand up for herself. In the beginning, Melinda didn't talk to anyone, barely even to her parents. She says, “I have tried so hard to forget every second of that stupid party and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do. I can't tell them what really happened” (Anderson, 28).
Melinda is ready to share with a trusted adult how she really felt on the inside throughout this school year. Melinda has changed as a person drastically throughout the story partly because of her drawing trees. I think she has now fully recovered from the incident and is ready to grow even more. The story of Speak and Melinda Sordino shows how art can be a powerful thing.
Throughout the book, Melinda has many self-deprecating thoughts that have led to her deteriorating mental health. A specific quote displayed by the book says, “I’m sure I was a huge disappointment. I’m not pretty or smart or athletic”(Anderson 70). This excerpt from the book claims that Melinda has zero positive qualities and is overall not a good person. She assumes that everybody in the world thinks she is some huge disappointment that is undeserving of anything.
Lowry's novel is a powerful reminder of the consequences of suppressing memories and, thus, not learning from past experiences. Without utilizing these tools handed to us, we cannot understand the complexity of human existence. The book is a call to action for our society to appreciate the past so as to not fall victim to the same dull, lackluster life experienced by the citizens in the dystopia. Lowry encourages the reader to use memories to improve quality of life and share the good and the bad with others. Without sharing experiences, we risk falling into the same fate of loneliness experienced by Jonas.
Melinda, in a lot of ways, starts out like that it the book. She becomes a shell of herself from before the party happened and because no one else was there, she is lonely and doesn't have anybody to go to and to make matters even worse, she’s covered by the reputation that she has formed. In the book, Laurie Halse Anderson uses symbolism to convey exactly what Melinda can't say. In the beginning of the book, Melinda starts high school carrying her emotional wounds with her after something happens mysterious to her at a party during the summer.
The teacher, Ms. Price picks up a sweater and asks the class if anyone is missing a sweater. A student says that it's Rachel's, and the teacher gives her the sweater without even thinking. Rachel thinks and speaks in a way that is very reminiscent of an eleven year old. There is a youthful, innocent tone in her voice, especially when she says “I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven” without actually thinking about the disadvantages of being that age. Throughout the day, she references home and how she longs to go home to celebrate with her family and eat cake.
Nostalgia makes her realize her childhood may not have been exactly as she remembers, and Pastiche serves to remind her that the present is actively being influenced by the