Speak

Life, we love, it, we hate it but we also make or break it. Many say that death is peaceful, life is hard. While that may be true we don’t have a choice; we have to just go along for the ride. But while you're climbing further and further up that huge mountain called life you’re bound to fall at some point in time. That’s okay because that proves you're human; everyone makes mistakes or hits a bump in the road. How we handle it, that shows people what kind of person we are. So be strong and get back up, don’t let anyone tear you down. Your character is who you are, and everywhere you go your making first impressions. So what kind of person do you want to be? There’s always two different kind of people one’s who say I will, and the ones who say I have. The ones who fell, and the ones who got back up. Who are you?
High school is an exciting, fun kingdom for some, but to other’s it’s like a mouse scurrying in a cage of many snakes. Lurking through the halls for a hiding spot in a stone cold dungeon. Most people tell everyone how awesome and fun high school is, between the classes and the trips, but they forgot to mention how vicious people can be. How some talk could ruin your whole reputation, that there are people with what it seems have stone cold rocks for hearts, that will stop at nothing to tear you down and destroy you. Most people forget to mention that. In the book “Speak” by Laurie Anderson a girl named Melinda faces a not so pleasant experience starting her high school year’s. And something I would say that was quiet an understatement of what was just said. Imagine the whole school against you including your once “best friend” and now there is no one in sight that isn’t staring you down with hatred and everywhere you turn it almost seems like their dirty looks are burning in the back of your head. And why? Because half the people don’t care and didn’t bother to ask what happened and some believed a stupid rumor. Plus to top it all off it’s not like she had parents there to talk to or be there for her, she was really and truly alone in this evil judgmental world. It’s just so sad how she had absolutely no one, not even the one person she wanted to tell what really happened, her “best friend” Rachel was there for her. I mean what is friendship, I thought it meant someone who will always be there for you no matter what, someone who will take care of you love you, stand up for you, someone you can talk to and most importantly someone you can tell all your secrets to. But sadly and suddenly Melinda found out the hard way that that wasn’t what her and Rachel seemed to have had no matter how bad she wanted it different. But something that just blows my mind is why would her so called best friend not even bothered to ask Melinda what really happened why did she call the cops on the party resulting in everyone hating her. She just totally ignored her and never talked to her once. And even out of everything else and all the other people Rachel's rejection towards Melinda stung the worst; it hit her like a brick to a wall. And all Melinda wanted was someone she could talk to someone she could tell what really happened.
But what really did happen? Everyone would have liked to know but Melinda just choked up every time It went on for awhile and then one day in art class everyone had to pick a random subject to make but it had to speak to everyone, it had to say something and Melinda picked tree. Which once again tied in with a flashback. Later on in other art classes all the trees would be dark with lightning striking them, this could symbolize darkness and sadness, something bad happened to her. Could she be secretly showing her old emotions to the past? I didn’t understand at first what happened. But it became more obvious toward the middle of the story. For example when she was in science and her and her lab partner David P were dissecting frog and to set it up for dissecting she had to pin up it’s arms and legs and then slice the helpless, lifeless frog open, and then another flashback. I thought about this for awhile how would a frog getting pinned up to be dissected relate to her in anyway resulting in a flashback. Could maybe she have felt helpless like that? Did she get pinned up and was forced to do something? Well no one was sure. But despite all that Melinda needed a place to go, somewhere she could hide and no one would find her. So she found a closet and old janitor’s closet that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. Melinda thinks this is perfect, it’s a place where she can get away from all of her problems. What she finds that stood out to me the most on pages 25-26 is the cracked mirror and the roaches. These are the things that stood out to me because when it comes to symbolism in my opinion the cracked mirror represents Melinda just cracking and her falling apart and sadly it could also represent bad luck, and the roaches with cobwebs represent that she is dead inside and just like the roaches all wrapped in their own individual cocoon like wrappings in the cobwebs symbolizes she like to be alone and isolated ever since the incident at the party, whatever that was. This incident did not only ruin her social life her report cards got worse and worse. But what happened?
Well we still don’t find out until later. But once again Melinda likes to be alone and isolated from everyone. But while she was hiding in her closet so she didn’t have to go to the pep rally, Heather, a new girl at school that liked Melinda just for who she was, or so I thought when Melinda started acting negative toward everything Heather dumped her and started hanging with the “popular girls. Her negative approaches toward everything could reflect on what happened at the party. And what negativity did Melinda give that was the last straw for Heather? Well she went to the pep rally and wasn’t to happy, but she pointed out something very true to me why do all the girls look up to the cheerleaders? There just like everyone else imperfect in many ways she states that “ they will all have abortions before proms from sleeping around at parties”. I thought about that and that made a lot of sense to me. But then the secret comes out. Melinda tells us she was raped by a senior named Andy Evans at that party. When I read this let’s just say it really spoke to me, tears flowed down my face. It’s just amazing to me how someone could be so sick to do a thing like that, and not only that but after feel good about himself and lie to himself and say she wanted it. Although she didn’t say no she didn’t say yes either and that’s just wrong. So to try to get away from the secret and calm down Melinda went back to her closet. But this time she heard footsteps someone opens the door it Andy Evans. HE turns around and locks the door. Melinda’s scared out of her mind her heart is pounding, her body shaking but to choked up to say a word. All of a sudden Andy is saying how she is ruining his life and how she wanted it and she knows it then he tries it again the same thing that happened under the trees at the party. But when Melinda resists he punches her, blood trickles out of her mouth, he grabs her but no she is never going to let that happen to her again. She grabs a piece of glass and stabs him in the throat. Not deep enough to kill him but deep enough to hurt. Then other people come to the door I presume from hearing commotion and see what has happened. Rachel being one of them, is shocked she can’t believe it she says “ why didn’t you tell me” Well because you never asked or seemed to care. But in the end the girls run for help. And I hope that she doesn’t keep quiet and she speaks and puts Andy in jail.
Rape it’s not a word I like or a subject I like to talk about. But many people make jokes and just don’t understand what it’s like. And most victims will never say a word so you could be sitting right next to someone and they were raped and someone’s making jokes and rude comments, honestly grow up, it not funny at all. Victims at the time feel helpless like it’s just them and the peron(s) in the whole world and no matter how loud they scream, kick, jump, bit, scratch, nothing works and they just have to take what’s given to them. It’s a horrible thing that no one deserves to go through. So if your one of those people that makes it’s not funny so grow up and stop. If you’re a person who knows someone who got raped just be there for them and try to comfort them, because that’s all you can do