Speak Part Numero Dos!

In the second book discussion for Speak, my group discussed the changing high school life of Melinda Sordino.
We discussed the fact that Melinda portrays the type of person who longs for attention from anyone even of she wants to isolate herself from the outside world. In one case scenario, Melinda's only friend in high school, Heather, tells Melinda that she did not want to be her friend anymore since she had a 'bad reputation'. At the mention of this, Melinda got upset. Even if she's the type of person who does not want to be aroud people, Melinda still feeels hurt because she now knows that she would have to be completely alone. She also pushes people away. A classamte of Melinda, David Petrakis, had invited Melinda to a party but she refused to attend.
The fact that we didn't understand was why Melinda was so hurt by the breakup with Heather if she had already stated from the beginning that Heather was only a disposable friend. She was only there when she need her and then she was planning to get rid of her whenever she wanted to.
Melinda's ex-best friend, Rachel, had stood up for what she believed in during class and in the end, she got the entire class punished. In her mind, Melinda said, "That's what you get for speaking up," (102). This shows that Melinda is afraid to speak up for whatever happened to her in the past. She does not want to tell people what her situation is because she is afraid that she will either get judged or that people would not care and not believe her.
In Speak, me and my group members found signs of symbolism. In the book, Melinda is discussing about symbolism in one of the books she must read in class. This sort of lead us to believe that it was intentionally written about throughout the story to show that Speak itslef has symbolism. For example, the tree solely represents Melinda in every way. In one case, Melinda had drew a tree that was scarred and that had many branches reaching out form it. The tree portrays the type of person that Melinda is because the scars on the tree implies that Melinda has been through something tough during her life and that has left her with bad memories. The branches that extend from the tree represent what lies ahead of Melinda as in the new chapters of her life. Branches on a tree show that many things can happen during a lifetime and that we get pulled in many different directions.
Finally, we learn what actually happened to Melinda. She was raped at a summer party. The reason why Melinda has no more friends was because they shunned her. After she was in shock of what had happened at the party, Melinda had called the police and they had to shut down the party. That was the only reason why they didn't want to be friends with her.
Overall, the book is starting to get even more intersting. We get to see into the life of a young teenage girl who has to struggle within her high school life for something that was out of her control. I predict that the final section to Speak will tell of how Melinda will finally reveal her secret to someone instead of keeping it all in without letting anyone know what lies behind the real person.