The Importance Of Silence In Sylvia Anderson's Speak

The book Speak is about a young woman who has just entered high school her name is Melinda Sordino. She has entered high school being disesteem by the majority of her old friends and much of the school's population because at a party she called the cops. She only called the cops because she had too much to drink and was raped by a boy named Andy Evans a senior at her high school who is described as a “Greek God”. So after all this happens she starts battling with depression, but she is fighting it with a twig she allows her depression to get the best of her and her parents are too busy to care or notice her. Towards the end of the book she starts to break her silence, letting the light tear apart the depression that had set upon her by indirectly
Mom: "I don't have time for this, Melinda."Her silences about the raping is leading her to have suicidal thoughts and actions. In the end of the book there's a theme called breaking the silence is harder than letting it break you which she does when she wrote on the bathroom stall BOYS TO STAY AWAY FROM which she put Andy Evens name on it and many girls agreed with her then she tells Rachel (her ex best friend and andy's girlfriend) the evidence is a quote “/ didn't call the cops to break up the party, I write. I called—I put the pencil down. I pick it up again—them because some guy raped me. Under the trees. I didn't know what to do. She watches as I carve out the words. She leans closer to me. I write more. / was stupid and drunk and I didn't know what was happening and then he hurt—I scribble that out—raped me. When the police came, everyone was screaming, and I was just too scared, so I cut through some back yards and walked home.” Which at first didn't believe her but then learned the horrifying truth and leaves him which leads to Melindas and his final confrontation which she finally breaks the silence. In the end all conflicts are resolved and she is left a new person one who is stronger than the girl that didn't know what her life was worth in the beginning of the