Speaking and Listening in Speak

Speaking and Listening in Speak

When you speak to someone, you are hoping for them to listen. If somebody never speaks, it is impossible for anybody to listen. Melinda's fear of nobody listening overpowers her want to tell the truth of what happened to her at the party. During the bulk of the novel, her lack of speaking and exposing her problems is what leads to many themes such as isolation and despair. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda's silent speaking is brought out through her indicating art, willing listeners, and telling actions.

Sometimes when individuals are faced with traumatic events like Melinda, they turn to an activity as a way of expressing the struggling mindset. In her art she shows her true pain and despair from the party and how it has made her become. When Melinda makes a sculpture out of the turkey bones and puts a barbie doll head on top with tape over its mouth, Mr. Freeman says, “This has meaning, Pain.” (65). This work symbolizes her pain of not being able to speak out, her destroyed Thanksgiving, and even her destroyed life. Another piece Melinda works on is her tree drawing which she states, “it looks like a dead tree... I can't bring it to life” (Anderson 78). This exemplifies her dying inside just like the tree, she cannot get her life back. Along with many other activities, art is a key way Melinda expresses herself.

Though Melinda thinks she has no friends or a supporting family, characters in the story are reliable listeners that subtly help her open up. One of these people is her lab partner David Petrakis, who challenges Mr. Neck and makes Melinda comfortable with giving her suffragette report. After her report he criticizes her and says, “But don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself” (159). Throughout the entire story Mr. Freeman helps her through art, but at the end sums up her transformation when he