How To Life In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

On the first day of school, Mr. Freeman, Melinda’s respected art teacher, states, “You just chose your destiny, you can’t change that” (12). Melinda is starting high school not being able to speak the truth about what happened to her and why she called the cops at a party with lots of high schoolers that summer. Her ex-best friend Rachel, who understood everything about Melinda, now hates her, and Melinda feels like an outcast. In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda randomly chooses trees as her art project for the whole year, and is expected to find herself; with no idea how to bring her trees to life, she faces many struggles and different media, and as she begins to grow her trees begin to thrive. As Melinda works on her tree art projects she is becoming flustered …show more content…
One day in art class, Melinda imagines a strong ancient oak tree, covered with thousand of leaves. Trying to make her tree match the one she imagined, she tries again. When she tries to carve it into her linoleum block, it only appears dead. Melinda thinks to herself, “It looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a child’s drawing. I can’t bring it to life. I’d love to give it up” (78), which shows that even though she wants to give up on it, she does not; instead, she sticks with it. Melinda realizes she does not include any emotion in her trees, and she is not sure how to add it. When Mr. Freeman was giving Melinda a ride after school he tell her, “The next time you work on your trees, don’t think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage-whatever