Matt Guthy Mrs. Palmer
Speak Critical Lens Essay
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”-Martin Luther King. This quote means that if you don’t speak about the problems you have, along with the problem of those around you, you will slowly begin to die. This quote has validity with the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, as the main character, Melinda, slowly begins to “die” inside. The fact that she didn’t speak up about her problems clearly lead to a lack of caring for her physical appearance, an anti-social behavior, and many other factors of her deepening depression. But she steadily began to speak, and once she did, she began to escape the repercussions of her silence, and was “reborn”.
Melinda’s silence began her spiral of depression, resulting in: a lack of care for her appearance, anti-social behavior, and an attempt to avoid rejection all together. Melinda’s silence resulted from the fact that she was attacked at Kyle Rodger’s senior cheerleader party. She became drunk and was then raped by Andy Evans, and as a result called the cops to the party. Students were arrested at this party, leading students (many of which she doesn’t know) to hate her. She clearly suffers psychological trauma from this event, as displayed in her science class while dissecting frogs: “My throat closes off. It is hard to breathe. I put out my hand to steady myself against the table. David pins her froggy hands to the dissection tray. He spreads her froggy legs and pins her froggy feet. She doesn’t say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut- I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, leaves in my hair.” Dissecting the frog makes her flashback to the night she was attacked bringing back the horrible memories she has and causing her to faint. On top of this her fractured family life provides no outlet to talk about her problems. Her mom is a workaholic, much more worried about her job than her family. Her dad attempts to fix problems, but can’t and a majority of the time only makes them worse. This poor family dynamic also influences her silence as she cannot even speak to her parents about her problems. While in school, she cuts many of her classes to spend time in an abandoned janitor’s closet. While inside she cleans and refurbishes the room, and covers the mirror in the closet with a poster. The covering of the mirror is symbolic as it shows that she dislikes herself so much that she has trouble even looking at herself. The janitor’s closet itself represents herself with her depression and solitude. Another incident was when the school’s basketball team had won its first game and David Petrakis, her lab partner, decided to throw a party to celebrate the victory. David invites her, but she declines and claims that she has “homework, strict parents, tuba practice” and other ridiculous excuses. While this is one of the few real chances she gets to be social, she declines it and goes back to her solitude because of what happened at Kyle Rodger’s party. The feelings that Melinda has and the events that occur because of them show that she needs to speak up about the attack and of her problems so she stops “dying” and can finally be “reborn”.
