Mirrors, traditionally used for seeing a reflection, usually of someone’s true outer self. In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, Melinda Sordino does not want to see herself. After Melinda was raped at a high school party by Andy Evans, she becomes severely depressed and unable to speak. In this novel, mirrors symbolize how Melinda despises her appearance, and show how she is unable to accept her own reflection after she was raped.
Throughout this novel, there are clear signs that Melinda dislikes her appearance. For example, when Melinda is in her room, she says, “I watch myself in the mirror across the room. Ugh.”…“Two muddy-circle eyes under black-dash eyebrows, piggy-nose nostrils, and a chewed-up horror of a mouth.”…“I get out of bed
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I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall” (Anderson 16-17). This shows her hatred towards herself and that she is very focused on her flaws and her outer appearance. Melinda is afraid to face herself and fears that if she does it will bring back the dreadful memories of the night she got raped. In addition, when Melinda is in her “refurbished” closet at school, she states, “The first thing to go is the mirror. It is screwed to the wall, so I cover it with a poster of Maya Angelou that the librarian gave me” (50). Melinda’s hate for mirrors is very apparent in this quote. She wants the mirror gone so badly that, when she cannot remove it, she just covers it. She would rather see someone else’s face looking back at her, rather than her own. Lastly, when Melinda is at her mom’s store, she says, “I scurry out to the three-way mirror.”…“I adjust the mirror so I can see reflections of reflections, …show more content…
Over time that mindset shifts, she still does not fully love her appearance but comes to realize being raped was not her fault. For instance, after school when Melinda is in the bathroom hiding from “The Marthas”, she says, “I hide in the bathroom until I know Heather’s bus has left. The salt in my tears feels good when it stings my lips. I wash my face in the sink until there is nothing left of it, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. A slick nothing” (45). Melinda feels like she is nothing, she wishes she would just disappear. This displays how Melinda is unable to accept her appearance while looking in a mirror. Secondly, while in Mr. Freeman’s art room, Melinda comes to conclusion, “IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding. Andy Evans raped me in August when I was drunk and too young to know what was happening. It wasn't my fault. He hurt me” (198). Even though this quote does not directly relate to mirrors, it shows Melinda’s growth. She went from blaming everything on herself, to putting the blame on the person who deserves it, Andy Evans. This displays the start of Melinda’s journey to healing. Finally, when Andy tried to rape Melinda again in her closet, she states, “I hit the wood against the poster, and the mirror under it, again”...“I reach in and wrap my fingers around a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans’s neck. He
Although, for her, she has nothing more to focus on she trusts her imagination to pass the time. Over time she becomes more and more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, which leaves her in shock. “The wallpaper becomes a projection screen of the narrator growing fright.” (Berman, p.47) This means that the narrator goes to herself on the wall. The isolated woman in the yellow paper is her own reflection. Something that the narrator still does not realize, she only feels the need to release the woman trapped in the wall. She refers to her room as a prison continuously. As she begins to feel isolated she projects her feelings on the yellow wallpaper, but the idea that the room is her prison goes from figurative to reality as insulation deepens her need to escape in some way. “Every time the narrator speaks, she is interrupted and contradicted until she begins to interrupt and contradict herself.” (Berman, p.55) She has her own plan for recovery. But unfortunately, her husband does not listen. For him, the only
...lth declined. Unlike Prynne, Melinda is not indifferent to her fellow companion; instead, she is silent with thoughts and opinions of her companions. Anderson used Melinda’s reactions to the dejection and how deceit, despair, and dejection coincide to allow the readers feel as though Melinda was sitting next to them in class or walking pass them in the store.
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
Ever since the party, Melinda rarely talked to anybody, including her parents. Nevertheless, I noticed that during the second semester of the year she talked considerably more. “All right, but you said we had to put emotion into our art. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”(p122). This quote is from the third marking period when Melinda was talking to her art teacher Mr.Freeman. I believe that she wouldn’t have said anything had it been earlier in the year. “Stinks. It was a mistake to sign up for art. I just couldn’t see myself taking wood shop.”(p.146). This quote is another example of Melinda talking, this time to Ivy in the mall. I think these quotes prove that Melinda starts talking more as the year progresses.
This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
... seemingly trapped inside the yellow wallpaper, when she sees that constant face of the woman trapped inside, again she sees or is just seeing herself because her, herself is trapped and falling into insanity.
“I didn 't want it to be a big deal. However, it 's an alarming subject. Trying to be nonchalant about it just makes it weird for everyone.” After Allie seeks professional help, she feels as no one understands her. She then starts to show hate towards people and not a care about her image, she wears raggedy clothes and attitude towards people.The shadows in the drawings seem to only show on her as she is wearing a dirty hoody. While her friends look happy, and with shadows on the back of their heads as the light is shinning at their faces. The artist does a good job of showing us what is not being said.
She always getting into a fight with her mother all the time about her beauty, because she has a habit of looking at herself in the mirror wherever she found one, “…she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into the mirror or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was alright.” (126). Moreover, her mother always compares her with her sister, June, which makes she feel even more hatred toward her mother, “Why don’t you clean your room like your sister? How’ve you got your hair fixed – what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk.” (126). Her mother, whenever she gossips on the phone with her aunties. They always admire June over her, “June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked, and Connie couldn’t do a thing, her minded was all filled with trashy daydreams.” (126). To them, June is always the best, because she is good at almost everything and Connie cannot do anything right. Therefore, when Connie’s mother says something or complaint about her beauty, she rolls her eyeballs and wishes that her mother was
She first sees a confusing pattern and as she follows the pattern she sees a woman behind the wallpaper. The narrator describes the woman in the wallpaper as a ‘creeper’ and also admits that she has same habit of creeping as well. “I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don 't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight ! I always lock the door when I creep by daylight” (Stetson 654). Throughout the story, ‘creep’ becomes the narrator’s favored adjective for describing how she feels and how she personifies the woman behind the wallpaper. Apart from creeping the other characteristics of women behind the wallpaper such as being plain, trapped and insane are also very likewise to the characteristics of the narrator. In Freud 's understanding the concept of the ‘double’ is that the self becomes confounded, or the foreign self is substituted for his own in other words, by doubling, dividing and interchanging the self (Freud 9). To get away from feeling imprisoned the narrator invented the “creeping women” in her mind and pictured it in the wallpaper to cope with her anxiety and
Sammy watches every step the girls take while criticizing and admiring them at the same time. His observations of the leader who he refers to as Queenie and her followers give him an insight of who they are personally. Sammy likes Queenie as she possesses confidence which sets her apart from the group. Sammy, still being a young boy likes that her bathing suit has “slipped on her a little bit” (Updike 158). Updike conveys the obvious that Sammy cannot look away from Queenie when “there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her”. Updike includes these small details and imagery to indulge the reader in the perception that Sammy at this point in his life is a clueless teenage
The novel Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl, who gets raped in the summer before the start of her freshman year in high school and the book follows her as she tries to cope with the depression that comes that kind of violation. This book was turned into a movie; and released early in the early 2000’s and when adapting books to film, a lot of information and details are lost in the process. When comparing Speak the novel and Speak the movie, the noticeable differences are; the character relationships, Melinda’s character, and Andy Evans and Melinda’s dynamic.
The movie Mirror Mirror is based off of the classic Disney movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The story follows Snow White as she lives with her evil stepmother who becomes jealous of Snow’s kind heart and innocent looks that make her the fairest of them all. Within the modern interpretation, the storyline takes on a new perspective that molds the characters to have different traits than the original. Even though the basic concept remains, the fact that the creators tweaked each personality results in a more intense and adventurous story. Disney fans will be drawn to this movie because not only does it add more life to a classic fairytale and gives the characters a stronger personality, but is also ties in other Disney fairytales into the details. Feminism is also viewed in this film, and creates a healthy balance
The first symptom of the mirror is seeing the reaper. The doomed victims often doubt their vision as an anomaly. In Spangler’s case, he thought it was only friction tape, and the high schooler only saw a black splotch. Second, victims feel sick and realise that what they saw was, in fact, a cloaked man standing directly behind them. Lastly, when they cannot bare it any longer, doomed victims rush out of the room. This is, however not the only way the mirror has tormented people. Carlin alludes that until it was moved downstairs, many of the museum visitors would act strangely around it. One person, the sister of the high school victim, even tried to break the mirror. Carlin says, “There had been others -- harsh words, wild statements -- but this was an attempt to actually destroy the mirror. The woman, a Miss Sandra Bates, came in with a rock in her pocket. Fortunately her aim was bad and she only cracked a corner of the case. The mirror was unharmed” (King). The delver mirror has a very supernatural description. It is one of the few that has survived throughout the years and, even those intent on destroying it seem to miss. It torments everyone around it by making them say strange and harsh
In the introduction scene as Cleo looks in her mirror, she reflects to herself, “as long as I’m beautiful I’m even more alive with others.” After observing that scene, it reveals how women look in the mirrors and do not actually see themselves. Rather, the view distorted by the cruel world’s beauty standards. Cleo should know that others may make you appear more present; it does not truly mean you exist in your in-itslef. Cleo, in her mind, maintains this immoral attitude throughout the beginning of the film that her looks must present to everyone, especially those people on the streets of Paris, her unacknowledged beauty. All this effort is made by not just Cleo, but most of society’s women to avoid the confrontation of being misperceived and or stigmatized. For instance, after watching a scene where Cleo is with her lover, instead of talking about her affliction and opening up to her partner, she still places herself as the perfect image of his perception of beauty. It is obvious that Cleo is left unsatisfied when her lover at the time leaves her. This being a cry for help for the true relationships in which she mourns for. Cleo focuses on being alluring as possible instead of speaking what really is on her mind. Cleo, in turn, fixating on how she is viewed by others. Through gazing at her reflection
13th March, 2014 In the poem “Mirrors”, by Sylvia Plath, the speaker accentuates the importance of looks as an aging woman brawls with her inner and outward appearance. Employing an instance of self-refection, the speaker shifts to a lake and describes the discrepancies between inevitable old age and zealous youth. By means of sight and personification, shifts and metaphors, the orator initiates the change in appearance which relies on an individual’s decision to embrace and reject it. The author applies sight and personification to accentuate the mirror’s role.