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Speak
A young freshman girl named Melinda is written off by her friends for calling the police at a recent party. Unfortunately,
none of those friends found out her reason for doing so: she was raped by a jock named Andy. The tragedy renders
Melinda speachless, unable to tell her story and barely able to function day to day.
Mr. Freeman, Melinda's art teacher, seems to be the only adult who notices Melinda might have some trouble in her life,
and he encourages her to explore what she feels through art. Her year long assignment is to work on a drawing of a tree.
The metaphor of a tree is more than an art assignment: Melinda's own life is like a tree, one whose dead branches and
limbs must be cut and removed before the tree can continue growing. If the dead parts are removed, the tree will thrive.
If the dead parts remain, the tree will die. In the final page of the book Melinda says, "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. It wasn't my fault. And
I'm not going to let it kill me. I can grow." Melinda chooses to grow her tree, to let herself continue living.
The interior narrative of Melinda is compelling to read. She rarely speaks, but her thoughts and desires are told
to the reader as her story unfolds. What happened to Melinda on the night of the party is revealed to the reader in
small pieces. Melinda sees "IT" at school, has small interactions with him, someone mentions his name and she cringes
- pieces of the tragedy are revealed at intervals in Melinda's narrative, so that by the time we know what happened at the
party, we are fully sympathetic to and aware of the consequences and pain of that night, and we are able to see fully why
Melinda has isolated herself from almost all contact.
According to Smith, "Anderson uses Melinda's inner monologue to move her from disbelief and pain and almost total withdrawal
toward a final encounter with her rapist that forces her to emerge from hiding and to speak" (2000). The final encounter
with the rapist is Melinda's final chance to choose to live or to choose to die in isolation. The novel not only leaves
readers with Melinda's story of ultimate courage, but it addresses larger concerns in the character of Andy, who, as it turns
out, has harmed other girls. Melinda's courage in the face of such emotional and physical pain has caused other girls
to reveal their secrets, breaking the sphere of isolation and moving towards growth and healing.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. 1999. ISBN
0374371520.
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