Speak 1
About Speak The main character in Speak is Melind
a, 13, who describes her world and the situation she finds herself in during her freshman year of high school. Melinda is being shut out by her former friends and experiencing bullying, both psychological and emotional, at school. Keenly observed scenes of an almost unbearable daily life alternate with descriptions of something that happened in the past. These are highly fragmentary at first, but gradually become more and more clear. Just before the start of school, Melinda attended a party with drinking and drugs at which she was raped. She called the police but could not make herself stay and tell them what had happened. Now, she has told no one about the rape and is haunted by memories of the assault. Her former friends only know that she called the cops and broke up the party, while her parents don’t understand – and can’t tune in to – what she is going through. To deal with both her trauma and the bullying at school, Melinda adopts a strategy of silence and isolation. She stops talking almost entirely, keeping her thoughts, piercing observations, and sarcastic commentary to herself. Only in art class, taught by the eccentric Mr. Freeman, does she slowly start to express herself in pictures. When a former friend is in danger of being assaulted by the same perpetrator, Melinda finally forces herself to start communicating again. The novel ends with her saying, “Let me tell you about it.” She has reached a point where she has regained her voice, or possibly won a new and stronger voice that she can use to speak for herself and on her behalf. An important figure for Melinda is American author Maya Angelou. When Melinda takes over an abandoned janitor’s closet as a hiding place and refuge, she replaces the mirror with a poster of Angelou. Anderson has said that her choice of Angelou was deliberate: she wants readers to ask others about Angelou and search out information about her for themselves. Speak was written at a time when discussions about appropriate literature for young people had led to the banning of Angelou’s autobiographical novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in many US schools. In the book, Angelou describes being raped at age eight. Although Melinda in Speak is unaware of it, readers can make the connection between the contents of Angelou’s book and Melinda’s life. Since the publication of Speak,
