Leeana Minott Speak Laurie Halse Anderson, author of speak, a ...

Leeana Minott
Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson, author of speak, a heart wrenching, and will keep you on
the edge of your seat book.
Speak is about a girl named Melinda who was forced to call the cops during a summer
party due to her being raped.
Melinda is now faced with being the outcast and silent girl in her new high school. Speak
is the type of book that may have more than one theme
but Speaks overall theme would have to be "sometimes the past is best used as
motivation."
Although Melinda had very few things in her past to be motivated by, that all
change the night of that party.
Melinda was the outgoing type, the girl involved in many things, but ever since that
night, Melinda has been like her "two personality couch."
One side being the pretty and wonderful and the other side being the ugly and hiding the
fight to be clean and wonderful again. Just how Melinda
expressed the two personalities of the couch, thats just the same as expressing how much
Melinda has changed. Melinda has truly become the
definition of astray.
In the middle of Speak you being to see some changes in Melinda. Melinda
always just expressed how she felt and went through
in her art work but the "peanut butter that once locked her jaws" is starting to slowly
unlock. Melinda will no longer be the silent girl or the
fall back friend. She will begin to take up for herself. This brings me back to the theme of
Speak, Melinda is finally begining to see what her
past is making her become. A book with no pages, empty !! And she doesn't like it. In the

middle of the book Melinda realizes what happened
to her happened, it wasn't her fault and now she knows her past is her motivation. Her
motivation not to let with Andy Evans did to her beat
her.
Towards the end of the book Melinda has become this flower that was once on
the peek of death but some how was saved by the
"art" of nature. Melinda is starting to have more confident's. She's begining to see that
this situation doesn't have to beat her, What happened to
her is only begining to make Melinda stronger in many ways. Towards the end we being
to see that Melinda has truly found her voice. Melinda
opens her to her ex-best friend which is an example of the motivation caused by her past.
Opening up to her ex-best friend Rachel made those
tears that were kept bottled up in side finally "dissolve the last block of ice in her
throat."(198)
Sometimes the past is best used as motivation. Meaning there are things that may
happen to you, just like what happened to Melinda
but you have to look at it and say it happened it's the past and I have to use it to get on.
The past is the past but you have to remember that
what ever happened in your past is now apart of you and you cant change that. Even
though Melinda realizes this at the end of the book, she
realizes it and that's what counts. Just like Mr. Freeman said (art teacher) "you Just chose
your destiny, you cant change that."(12) Melinda has
finally chosen her destiny. To speak!!