Melinda in Speak

"You talking to me? I'll answer….  in my head, but not out loud." This is an answer typical of Melinda Sordino, the main character in Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak.  Melinda is a character with many flaws.

First,  Malinda  is a very very quiet person. She says some things but not  much. She has a mom and a dad and she has no brothers or sisters.  She wishes to borrow one. She is also very confused about  her self  and her personality. She communicates  with her parents by leaving notes on the table. She also has a very low self esteem of herself.

She also does not really have a personality, because her room is still from fifth grade. Because she has not changed anything about it. She has a little of each of her old friends personality but not of hers. She is not a very known person in the school. People use to know her the year before.

While she is at school, Melinda spends time in a janitor's closet. This is a symbol in the book Speak because Melinda hides herself here. In the closet, she finally feels secure, that no one will see her now. Then she starts to skip school for a couple of days. Finally she starts to go to all her classes everyday.  A conflict in the book was that Melinda getting good grades. The reason why is because she wasn't attending school for a couple of days.

Another symbol is the tree. First she was drawing second grade trees for  art. The tree symbolism represents the growth of herself, like when the tree is dead she does not feel very confident of herself she is not proud of how she looks like and she  felt disgusted of the things that happen to her during the party outside.

My conclusion of this book was, that we should not drink at an early age because our brain has not fully developed,  and if anything bad ever happens we should talk someone we really truly trust and not keep it a secret, because It could happen again or something worse could happen.