Warning! This contains spoilers.
Summary:
Speak, written in 1999, is a story about Melinda Sordino, an unpopular high school freshman. Abandoned by her friends just weeks before school begins, Melinda attends a senior party that unfortunately goes awry. After dialing 911 and consequently crashing the party, Melinda struggles to survive the torment of high school and those who hold her accountable for the mess the party became. Melinda tells no one her secret, and befriends a new girl from Ohio named Heather. They get along well, but as Melinda's depression worsens, and Heather's popularity begins to soar with the "Marthas," Heather decides they can no longer be friends and returns the friendship necklace Melinda had given her for Christmas. On top of her constant lip chewing scabs, friendlessness, and being alone, Melinda is haunted by "IT" who randomly runs into her throughout the school.
Melinda's grades begin to suffer greatly as she spends half of her time skipping class to get away from crazy teachers like Mr. Neck and Hairwoman, and sits in an abandoned janitor's closet with a poster of Maya Angelou. Her only A is in Art, where her teacher, Mr. Freeman, pushes her to perfect her art project about trees. At first she is excited about the project, but realizes soon enough that she must conquer the tree like she must conquer senior Andy Evans, a.k.a. Andy Beast/IT. Melinda becomes fond of her lab partner, David Petrakis, who also has feelings for her, though neither of them express this to each other.
Throughout the year, Melinda begins to notice her ex-friend Rachel/Rachelle getting close with Andy, and eventually learns the two are dating. Her other ex-friend, Ivy, ignores Melinda along with the others. But the more Melinda struggles, the more Ivy seems to warm up to her, and eventually helps Melinda liberate herself by writing Andy's name on the walls of one of the bathroom stalls under "Guys To Stay Away From." Melinda feels obligated to tell Rachel about what horrors lurk in the body of Andy Beast, and writes her a left-handed letter and mails it. Weeks pass and Melinda begins to think Rachel never got the letter, until one day when the two girls are passing notes in the library and Melinda confesses her secret to Rachel.
Analysis:
Speak is loaded with symbols. The most prominent symbol is Melinda's art project -- the tree. It's almost like fate when Melinda pulls in out of the globe Mr. Freeman offers her. It's as though he's offering her a new world, and in it she is to become a tree and blossom to her full potential. She's rotting from the inside out trying to hide and deal with her secret; the secret that Andy raped her. Her inner turmoil causes her to constantly chew and pick her lips, which makes kids wonder if she's "got a disease or something." Her swollen lips also show how Melinda's words are swollen; she rarely speaks, and often stutters in her replies. The more trees Melinda creates, the more they symbolize her and her growing strength to speak. Just about everything said about the trees is a symbol for Melinda's situation; her dad talking about the one in their yard, saying, "By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch -- buy the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block." This is a subconscious message for Melinda; she needs to speak before she can begin to grow again and start being the smart wonderful she was before.
But this isn't easy for Melinda. Part of her dead and rotted branches are holding her back. Another thing that's holding her back is her abandoned janitor's closet. Always running to it, hiding in it when she can't take the normal social pressures. It's like an enlargement of her mind; she goes there to think and sleep and not be interrupted. A part of her realizes this though once she decides she no longer needs the closet at the end of the year once she's told Rachel about the night of the party. During that moment, she also realizes that she's not the only one who has or will suffer this struggle, and decides to leave a few remnants for the next person who may stumble upon her old safe-haven.
The book is a stream of Melinda's conscious, her few spoken words, and her unconsciously symbolic actions. They all flow together wonderfully to create an amazing and real story for any reader.
