Melinda Sordino In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

In the United States, a forcible rape takes place approximately every 6 minutes (Statistic Brain Research Institute). Melinda Sordino is the main character in Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, Speak. Sordino nearly stops verbalizing after an unknown incident. Throughout the novel, this incident is revealed to be a rape. This occurrence takes place at an end-of-summer party, at which, after being sexually assaulted, Sordino calls the police, causing the party to end. As a consequence of not maintaining her friendships over the summer, Sordino starts her freshman year in high school as an outcast; therefore, she no longer socializes, nor does she have any friends. In addition, the relationships in her household are deteriorating as her lack of ability to express her feelings deepens. In the book Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson creates an extended metaphor for Melinda to help develop Melinda’s character. In the novel, she directly and actively compares her

Freeman’s class, “ For a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I’ve been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning. I try to paint them so that they are nearly dead, but not totally” (Anderson 30-31). The character is willfully trying to make her trees look dead to demonstrate her emotional emptiness and turmoil; furthermore, it is implied that her trees are drawn according to her mood variations, provided that she starts drawing nearly-dead trees after the pep rally. Besides being her art teacher, Mr. Freeman also acts as a mentor. While helping her develop her tree drawings, he helps Melinda grow emotionally and rise above her horrid circumstance as well. Although Melinda has not fully recovered yet, the improvement in her drawings is a sign that she has learned to overcome her struggle. Undoubtedly, her drawings become neat and pleasant-looking as Sordino recovers from her trauma, this is seen towards the end of the