Speak by Laurie Halse Literary Analysis Essay Sample
Throughout the book Speak by Laurie Halse shows that life is a struggle where humans display both negative and positive qualities. In this paper I will explain how Laurie is able to show this by using three characters Heather, Rachel, and Melinda.
Starting with Heather, throughout the book she is dedicated to becoming a popular kid. While this is neither a positive or negative quality I would argue that it is both. As Heather pushes to become a popular kid she turns into a very insensitive and ignorant person; this is demonstrated in the chapter named poster child where Heather rants to Melinda about how she was demoted in the Marthas group. She had no intent to talk about anything not related to herself. But Heather wanting to become a popular kid also shows how dedicated and outgoing she is. She is determined to become a popular kid and is always looking for ways to become a little closer to her goal. These points show how while Heather seems to be a selfish and narcissistic person she is also a person who is determined to reach her goals.
Moving to Rachel, she is a person who is struggling with finding who she is. This is close to how Melinda acts but Rachel decides to really embrace the “phases” that she goes through. One example being, changing her name and hanging out with the exchange students. This is where her negative qualities come into play as she is not able to fully commit to something. But this also helps her become open minded. In the chapter communication 101 when Malinda tries to tell Rachel about what happened at the party Rachel initially rejects the idea but does not fully reject the concept, she keeps the thought in the back of her head and when Andy decides to do something inappropriate she is able to realize what happened because she was opened minded about what happened at the party. These qualities are similar but are able to show how as Rachel progresses throughout the book she is displaying negative and positive qualities.
Lately, Melinda started out by being very reserved and introverted. She doesn’t have many friends and is disliked because she called the police at a party where she was assaulted. While after what happened I would most likely become similar to how Melinda acted, I would argue it is her negative quality. This is because it limits her to a confined “box” of what she is able to do. One result of this is she has an extremely hard time making friends. But as the book progresses she is able to slowly find her voice and is able to speak. Which is her positive quality, her confidence and the ability to be able to speak out and talk about what happened at the party over the summer. While it might seem like a small feat looking from the outside. The confidence needed to do something like what she had done is tremendous. Melinda is a really good character for this, displaying positive and negative qualities because her negative qualities move and completely changes into her positive qualities.
These three characters show how while some of these characters can be classified as a good or bad character they all show how throughout life everyone will display both negative and positive qualities.
