The progression of Melinda Sordino

The Progression of Melinda Sordino Melinda Sordino, the main character in Laurie Halse Anderson’s award winning novel, Speak, is a 9th grade student attending Merryweather High. In a flashback it is discovered by the reader that Melinda, Mel for short, was raped by an upper classman during a party in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. Mel calls the cops but by the time they arrive Andy, her rapist, is gone so everyone who attended the party was lead to believe Mel called the cops because of the underage drinking. Mel was “identified as a snitch, a traitor” (Smith, 274). Mel was bullied and expelled from her old group of friends. According to Sally Smith Melinda’s “early silence about an unspeakable act turns her toward harmful isolation and self-hatred” (274). She calls the memories of what happened that summer night at the party, the memories she keeps suppressed for so long, the beast. Throughout the story Mel goes from a child who has the beast locked up inside her, slowly choking her to death, to an experienced adolescent who understands and accepts her past therefore being able to move on, to speak. In the beginning of the book, Melinda gets on the bus on the first day of school and she cannot seem to decide where to sit, knowing she will have no one to sit with. In the opening of the book which is split into the 4 quarters, Mel is a negative, pessimistic student well down the road to depression. After getting off the bus Mel looks for someone to stand with. When she sees her “ex-best friend” Rachel, “Melinda sees Rachel mouth the words ‘I hate you.’ Melinda turns away and remains in her group of one. She names her group the outcasts” (“Speak.” Novels for Students, 253) Mel doesn’t even try to fit in where she “knows” she will not fit in. In fact, before Rachel even says anything to her, she sees some of her other friends laughing and assumes it is her that they are laughing at. “Melinda demonstrates as the novel progresses that, unlike her mother,