Thoughts on Speak

Reading Speak broke my heart.  It wasn’t so much the writing or the characters that had such a strong emotional impact on me, exactly.  Instead, it was knowing that there are people all across America, and all around the world, that experienced what Melinda went through in Speak.  Knowing this, Melinda’s story hit me so much harder because for millions of people, it’s not just a story in a book.  It’s their story.  They are Melinda, and they share that same horrifying experience.  Thus, Speak is an incredibly important book for adolescents to read.  It’s not just a story for many teenagers across America.  Instead, it may reflect their own lives and experiences.  If Speak can encourage just one victim to stand up for themselves or to feel as if they aren’t alone in their struggles, I feel that it is a novel that must be taught to adolescents, despite the heavy subject coverage.

Despite agreeing with the overall message of Speak, one issue that I had with Speak was the role of women in it.  Although I would consider Speak a feminist novel insomuch as it treats women as complex beings who are equal to men, while representing our society’s horrifying rape culture very clearly, I was greatly disappointed by the role of women in Melinda’s recovery.  Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie said in a very eloquent TED Talk that, “We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.”  This was especially evident during the final part of Speak when Rachel accused Melinda of lying about her rape. Instead of being concerned about the girl who had been her best friend for years and was clearly suffering mentally, Rachel accused Melinda of being jealous of her relationship with Andy.  Instead of supporting her friend, Rachel saw her as a competitor for Andy’s affection when Melinda was simply trying to protect her.  Speak was written in the 1990s, and I feel that this is expressed in the manner in which the girls in the novel treat one another.  In today’s “fourth-wave feminism” women are far more likely to respect and uplift each other.  They are more likely to protect one another and are far more likely to believe one another when a girl speaks up about an assault, thus we now have the #MeToo movement.  In Speak, there were no female characters that were kind to Melinda.  In a way, it was very odd because although Melinda’s trauma stemmed from patriarchal violence and our society’s rape culture, Melinda still had to be saved by men.  In Speak, the only people who were kind to Melinda and listened were David and Mr. Freeman.  It was an odd choice on Anderson’s behalf to do so as many rape victims fear and are uncomfortable around men following their trauma, yet somehow the women in Speak are the ones portrayed as victimizers while the men are considered safe, with the obvious exception of Andy.  From Rachel and the Heathers to Melinda’s mother and the female teachers at the school, not a single woman is portrayed positively.  Although the overall message of Speak is a very good one, in many ways Anderson’s novel plays into patriarchal standards despite denouncing rape culture.  The role of women in Speak may have been accurate when the novel was first written, and I was not alive at the time to say as to whether or not this is true, however in my experience today, women stand behind their friends and support them, and they believe them when they speak up about abuse.

One interesting novel to compare Speak to is We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson.  “Life is bullshit.”  That’s the opening line of We Are the Ants, but it also greatly reflects Melinda’s outlook towards life in Speak.  Melinda’s trauma destroyed her hope, eradicating any positive outlook she had on life at the beginning of the novel.  Unlike Speak, We Are the Ants isn’t a very mainstream book, but it covers very important topics such as suicide, mental health, and bullying.  There is an attempted sexual assault in We Are the Ants, and much like in Speak, the protagonist, Henry, struggles to deal with the attack.  However, in We Are the Ants, the attacker is someone that Henry felt he could trust.  Melinda’s attacker was a complete stranger. Both Speak and We Are the Ants focus closely on mental health in adolescents, but the most striking similarity between the two novels is how both Melinda and Henry are defined by passivity.  In We Are the Ants, Henry is abducted by aliens.  It’s debatable whether he was actually abducted by aliens or if he simply is mentally ill, but Henry believes he has been presented a choice by the aliens:  Push a big red button, and prevent the end of the world, or don’t, and let everyone die.  However, Henry isn’t sure if the world is worth saving, so he delays pressing the button.  Although suicide is incredibly prevalent in Henry’s life, he doesn’t choose to kill himself, but neither does he choose to save himself.  Neither does Melinda, at least until the end of Speak.  Although she cuts herself at one point in the book, it is very lightly with a paper clip.  Even Melinda says, “If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep?”  She never truly intends to die.  In fact, neither she nor Henry choose to die, but they simply don’t care to live.  By comparing these two novels, one sees how young adult literature so often revolves around mental health in teenagers.  The stories in We Are the Ants and Speak are completely different, but both offer complex views of mental health in adolescents.  Although it may be shocking for some to see such young people struggling with depression, suicide, and other mental health issues, these novels accurately represent adolescence, just not the side that people like to consider.