The Importance of Speaking Up in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Have you ever witnessed someone getting increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of someone because of an invasion of space or privacy? Or watched as someone made up a lie about something really important? Have you ever just kept quiet because it didn’t seem like that big of a deal or it doesn’t concern you? The most common answer to all these questions is yes! This is because of lacking the ability to speak up. Learning to speak up for yourself is an important part of growing up.

Your voice and opinions matter! Letting others know you thoughts and feelings, thoughts, and opinions will help you feel strong and help you become more confident. According to Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher, speaking up is important because it helps you grow as a person, gain confidence, and it can help cope up with certain difficult situations.

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In the novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, speaking up is important because it helps you grow as a person, gain confidence, and it helps you cope up with certain difficult situations. Living in a society where the main character Melinda Sordino feels angry, sad, and hurt because no one understands her and while constantly gains internal conflicts with herself whether or not to tell someone the real reason she had called the cops at the party, and at the end of the story, she finally makes her decision of speaking up about what actually happened.

She became an outcaste aftering calling the cops at the party she was raped. Melinda stays silent and isolated from everyone. But, through drawing which expresses her emotions, hiding to cover the pain inside, and finally fighting for what is right, Anderson shows that Melinda grows and becomes strong after all that she went through. Her character changes and improves from the first to the fourth marking period. At the beginning of the story, Melinda dislikes all her classes except art class which is the only class that makes her comfortable, relaxed, not worried about what might happen to her.

She learns to express her emotions through her drawings. For example, Mr.Freeman says before assigning the project, ”But there's a catch-by the end of the year, you must figure out how to make your object say something, express an emotion, and speak to every person who looks at it,” (Anderson,12) That is what exactly Melinda does by making her tree project creepy and painful which portrays her when IT or the beast Andy Evans raped her. Ivy comments on her project in a good way. Mr.Freeman can see what Melinda went through because her drawings clearly express it. In Melinda’s case, her sanctuary is the janitor’s closet. She needs a place to be alone, so she cleans it up nicely and hangs things on the wall like Maya Angelou’s poster. She becomes inspired by her because Maya went through the same experience as a young girl. During the second marking period, Melinda says, “My closet is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them,” (Anderson, 35) This is the only spot that helps her think about the images of the summer party and everyone in the school blames her not knowing the actual truth. So hiding the truth from her parents, ex-friends, and others in school keeps her silent, but strong because she wakes up each day hoping for the best.

Toward the end of the story Melinda wants to fight for what is right by writing in the school girl’s bathroom as a way of expressing her thoughts by communicating with other students anonymously. She wants all the girl’s to open their eyes and see who is the worst guy to stay away from, which is Andy Evans. By doing this it shows that Melinda is not afraid of hiding the truth anymore. Even though Melinda says that she wants Rachael to get hurt, but she doesn’t really mean it. Inside her heart she cares for Rachael because she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to her. Melinda feels relieved after Ivy shows what other girl’s wrote about Andy Evans in the bathroom. After reading it, she says, “I feel like I can fly,” (Anderson, 186) which shows that Melinda got out of the cage she was locked in and people in school are noticing that the rumors they thought were false were actually true.She looks up to see Andy Evans closing the door behind him. Andy yells at her for telling Rachel about the rape. He says that it was not rape and that Melinda wanted it just as much as he did. He is angry that the girls in school are calling him a pervert. Melinda attempts to move around him, but Andy tells her that she is not going anywhere. Melinda tries to scream, but makes no noise. Andy tells her that she will not scream, because she did not last time.

This time, however, Melinda finds her voice.She yells,throwing Andy off balance. He punches her, but she continues to make noise. Melinda breaks the mirror as Andy shoves her against a wall, and is able to grab a shard of glass and hold it against his neck. Andy backs off long enough for Nicole and the lacrosse team to reach the closet, one member of the team runs for help. From the beginning to the end we have seen changes in Melinda’s character. At first she never cared about herself and stayed far away from everyone. While she was alone she discovered sanctuaries that kept her safe because it was hard to explain her feeling to her parents, her old friends, and to the world. Keeping herself away from the others helped cope with her feeling in these places. We can see that Melinda has talent in art even though she believes it is crappy, but the drawings tell her story, the horrible pictures she sees in her head keeps her from saying words, and knowing that there is hope she doesn’t give up yet,right when you think she would. This is significant because it shows how she grew out of her phase of not expressing her feelings or speaking out and became a more confident independent person. And when another situation arrived which involved Andy Evans she new how to react and she spoke up.