Summary:
An essay about Melinda Sordino, the main character in Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak, who is a victim of a sexual crime. Melinda exhibits a number of physical and emotional indicators of sexual abuse, and she pursues various coping mechanisms, both negative and positive.
The statistics are alarming. Current estimations show that one-third of all children are sexually abused before the age of 18. That means 40% of all females and 30% of all males. What is especially shocking is that these estimations represent only a small portion of actual occurrences of sexual abuse. What is sexual abuse? Webster's Dictionary defines it as: the forcing of unwanted sexual activity by one person on another, as by the use of threats, or coercion; sexual activity that is deemed improper or harmful. There are many types of evidence used in determining whether or not a person has been sexually abused: physical, emotional coping mechanisms (good and bad). The question at hand is if Andy Evans raped Melinda Sordino. The answer to that is yes.
Specific physical indicators of sexual abuse include: bruises or bleeding in genital area or mouth, habit disorders (biting, rocking), eating disorders, headaches, stomach ailments, frequent accidents or self-injurious behaviors, and suicidality. Melinda exhibits many of these symptoms. A big piece of evidence is Melinda's habit of biting her lips: "I push my ragged mouth against the mirror. A thousand bleeding, crusted lips push back." (125). Melinda has problems with biting her lips because it is a constant reminder of Andy Evans: "His teeth ground hard against my lips..".."His lips lock on mine and I can't say anything..".. "Tears oozed down my face, over my bruised lips, pooling on the handset." (135-136). She does this because she wants to forget, but at the same time, she wants to have that memory in the front of her mind always just so that she can make sure it does not happen again. Another example would be the stomach problems and headaches that she gets: "My head is killing me, my throat is killing me, my stomach bubbles with toxic waste. I just want to sleep." (165).There is definitely enough physical evidence to support the fact that Andy Evans raped Melinda.
Specific emotional indicators of sexual abuse include: withdrawal, sleep problems or disruption, extreme fear of being touched, fear of authority figure, of being threatened, flashbacks, depression, low self-esteem, and a sense of not being believed. Melinda also exhibits many of these symptoms as well. Melinda has a flashback while witnessing the similarities of sexual abuse in another's actions: "Our frog lies on her back. Waiting for a prince to come and princessify her with a smooch? I stand over her with my knife. Ms. Keen's voice fades to a mosquito whine. My throat closes off. It is hard to breathe. I put out my hand to steady myself against the table. David pins her froggy hands to the dissection tray. He spreads her froggy legs and pins her froggy feet. I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut--I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, leaves in my hair. I don't remember passing out." (81). Another piece of evidence is that Melinda has become withdrawn from her parents: "This is the Death Voice, the Voice that means business. When I was a kid, this Voice mad me pee in my pants. It takes more now. I look Mom square in the eye, then rinse my plate and retreat to my room. Deprived of Victim, Mom and Dad holler at each other. I turn up my music to drown out the noise." (36). hands to the dissection tray. he spreads her froggy legs and pins her froggy feet. I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. she is already dead. a scream starts in my gut - I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, leaves in my hair." Melinda definitely has the emotional dispositions that go with being raped.
Another way to determine if sexual abuse has occurred is to look at any evidence of negative coping mechanisms. Melinda's biggest negative coping method is biting her lips. "There is blood on the snow. I bit my lip clear through. It needs stitches." (136). The reason she bites her lips is to cause some sort of physical pain to take away from the concentration on her emotional pain. Also, there is Melinda's suicide attempt: "I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist..".."I draw little windowcracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush." (87). Her thoughts of how to release the pain are also worrisome: "A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my mind, too"" (165). These negative coping methods definitely show that Melinda was indeed raped by Andy Evans.
There are also some positive coping mechanisms going throughout Melinda's situations. One example of this is her ability to take out her anger in good ways. IE: tennis: "I bounce the yellow ball, one two three. Up in the air like releasing a bird or an apple, then arcing my arm, rotate shoulder, bring down the power and the anger and don't forget to aim. My racket takes on a life of its own, a bolt of energy. It crashes down on the ball, bulleting it over the net. The ball explodes on the court, leaving a crater before Nicole can blink. It blows past her and hits the fence so hard it rattles. No one laughs." (170). Melinda also goes through good coping when she comes to an important realization: ."..WHAMMO!--a thought slams into my head: I don't want to hang out in my little hidy-hole anymore...I don't feel like hiding anymore." (192). These good coping methods show that Melinda is attempting, if not succeeding, to get over the fact that Andy Evans raped her.
Andy Evans, as the facts show, raped Melinda Sordino. Even though she was raped, Melinda was eventually able to do herself a favor by exposing the truth. My prognosis is that Melinda is in a stage of progression. She is at a stage of recovery in which I recommend attempting to express her feelings. Also, I think that she should talk to people about what happened to her and how she dealt with it. She needs to work on problem solving exercises, just to improve the ways that she reacts to certain things.
This is the complete article, containing 1,059 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
