Several events varying from late babysitting checks to rumors of Sylvia’s promiscuous sex life brought Gertrude to despise Sylvia and punish her. This punishment started getting more and more severe resulting in on-going torture. Gertrude’s children and their friends, following in her footsteps, began torturing Sylvia as well. Sylvia could expect being burned by cigarettes, being thrown down stairs, getting bathed in boiling water, beaten, cut, having objects inserted into her vagina, and being forced to eat her own feces on a day to day basis not only from Gertrude but also her children and other neighborhood teenagers. This torture lasted for months.
Later in the play, her before ‘happiness’ becomes loneliness and obsession over the ‘kiddy’. “I keep wondering about the kiddy opposite”. Still Miss Ruddock believes there is abuse or cruelty going on in the house and even tells the doctor about it. Her loneliness and obsession of the ‘kiddy’ build up, until we reach the climax to find Miss Ruddock has been writing ‘poison pen’ letters. “… Who was it that wrote to the chemist saying his wife was a prostitute?
Melinda has a problem with communicating and telling why she really called the cops . Melinda has been through alot but she has got over it and accepted the fact that she was raped and decided to accept her rape. Throughout the story one symbol that has changed and helped melinda to start communicating is the “Tree” she starts off making her trees “dead, not breathing and struck by lightning”(31) She symbolizes herself by making the trees this way because she is depressed and she thinks of herself as helpless and very sad. they way this symbol changes is that she makes a statement and says “my tree is definitely breathing” (196). this has changed because at first the trees are representing sadness now they are representing happiness.
In Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the author uses setting to reflect the many developing sociopathic characteristics of Miss Emily Grierson. Her eccentric, antisocial personality leads the reader to believe she has some type of mental defect. The different settings are used in a way to show her mental decline throughout the story. Emily uses the death of her father and her sheltered lifestyle to her advantage by bully those around her into getting exactly what she wants. These attributes are shown her doorstep, in the parlor of her home, and her secret upstairs room.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson has the potential to shape a reader, this is because it tells the story of a girl named Melinda who cant speak up about the horrible thing that happened to her. This lack of communication leads to a break down of her relationships and it is only because of the attention of a great teacher that she began to heal. Melinda is greatly affected by what happened that unforgettable night at the end of the summer before her freshman year. When enters the 9th grade she has no one to talk to because all of her old friends now hate her. At this point people already start to bad for Melinda.
Lilly Gregory MacLehose English Period 7 10/14/11 Speaking While Growing: Symbolism of Trees in Speak In the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson the author explores the symbolism of a tree to the way Melinda is living her life. The main character; Melinda Sordino, broke an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, and almost everyone in the school hates her for this act. At the party she was raped by an older boy, and she is too scared to speak up and tell someone. Melinda is so desperate to hide from the world that she turns an old janitors closet into her own private get away. She withdraws herself from her friends and chooses not to speak up, and tell people that she has been raped.
The story is told within the context of this sentence. Celie, the protagonist in the novel is silenced when she is denied agency in shaping her own life experiences. The silencing in its different forms begins, when Celie is raped and impregnated at the age of fourteen. Her silencing is also due to her dependency on patriarchal support, deprivation of education, has her self- esteem diminished and any form of love that she has or receives wiped out. The rape and other forms of silencing, also encountered by other women in the novel, make them embrace subjectivity and the patriarchal rule.
Kimberley was a student at the time of the accident. The deadly car accident has changed her life forever. Another young woman named Maureen also shares her experiences with alcohol. She started drinking at a young age and it has always caused her to perform very poorly at school. Maureen got addicted to alcohol and would cut school to drink.
She was first admitted to the hospital after she slit her wrists with a knife; this is the time she had become despondent, irritable, and out of control at home. The night before our interview, she had slammed her hand against the wall in an outburst of anger and frustration stating “I can’t stand it anymore” (Oster and Montgomery 41). Depression is defined as mood changes and other behaviors that are categorized from a small-scale sadness to extreme feelings of sorrow and thoughts to commit suicide (Oster and Sarah 43). In teenagers it occurs frequently and around a period in their lives when their identity begins to change. This tends to occur at a time when both males and females are trying to be unique from their parents, have gender and sexuality issues, and are making decisions for their well being.
Jamie and Tom. When Anna lost both her sons she was distraught. She wasn’t sure what to do or how to act. With Anna being like this she turns to drugs ‘poppies’ to give her some pain relief and escape from the mourning. Anna quotes "I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world."