Depression in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Novel Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak, who use the first person to write this novel on showing readers the real situation and emotion that Melinda face and how she is recovering from the school. Depression, as known as a major depressive disorder which is a common and serious disorder that can affect a person feel, think and handle daily activities. Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman girl who was invited to the end of the summer party. At the party, she met Andy Evans, a handsome and attractive senior boy who called on Melinda to dance with him. Melinda thought her dream life of high school was coming true, she would have a boyfriend, know everyone in the school. But, it was the horrible started. Melinda was raped by Andy Evans, the boy she just met at the party. She didn’t know what she can do, so she called the cops. Everyone turned to hate her as she busted the party. After Melinda was raped, she suffered from depression by “feeling of guilt, worthlessness or helplessness”, “thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts”, and “difficulty sleeping, early morning awakening, or oversleeping”.

One of the main symptoms of depression refers to “feeling of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness”. People who experience this symptom have a feeling of guilt about the traumatic event, they believe that the thing happens because of them. And they think that they are not being useful or important in any way and feeling helplessness that their physical and mental are unprotection and unsupportive. “Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze. What is wrong with me? It's like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis. I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else...My closet is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.” Every time, when Melinda tries to talk with her parents and teacher about the truth that really happens to her, she can’t say anything, she just wants to admit the crime and leaves the nightmares, flashbacks always her mind. The quote shows that Melinda suffers in depression because she is helplessness that she has no one can be trusted to talk about it, no one can give her a comfortable zone to speak up for herself, she has nowhere to go that everywhere is not belong to her. Melinda only can go to her closet where is a place that she can express all of her feelings and no one can found her and know the secret that she covered. “I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with an S maybe, S for silent, for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.” In Melinda’s English class, she gives herself for few words of S which are silent, stupid, scared, silly and shame for the symbolism. These words are derogatory terms that show the negative meanings. It demonstrates Melinda is in depression that she doesn’t believe her value, she thinks she is the worst person in the world ever. And it shows that she is guilty of herself that she keeps silent about not say anything with anyone, stupid of keeping silent and getting raped by a boy she just meets, and shame by violating. Also, she feels scared of nobody can help her out of the situation.

The other main symptoms of depression are referring as “thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts” which people have a thought of self-harm or a behavior of suicide. “I open a paperclip and scratch it on the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.” Melinda uses the paperclip to scrape it across her left wrist. She keeps doing this until she will not feel all the sadness, bad memories and pains. She was diagnosed with depression that she had a suicide attempt of using a paperclip to scratch on her hand. “When I close the closet door behind me, I bury my face in the clothes on the left side of the rack, clothes that haven't fit for years. I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.” Melinda likes to put herself into a closet which is a small place that can help her to feel more comfortable. She gets an old cloth to stuff her mouth to scream everything out of her mind so that no one can hear her screaming. It is a part of suicide attempts that she put herself in the closet and uses the fabric to stuff her mouth which against her emotion express irregularly.

Another main symptoms of depression refer as “difficulty sleeping, early-morning awakening, or oversleep”. People who have depression are lack of sleeping, they can’t sleep at night, or they can’t go back to sleep after they wake up at midnight and sleep over than their regular hours. “My goal is to go home and take a nap.” Melinda has a goal of sleeping that no one would make that target. The “goal’ shows that Melinda has a difficulty of sleeping for a while already so that she has to make a goal and it demonstrates that she can’t sleep at home. Sleeping is a way to get rid of things that Mel reality, to escape her in a state of depression. It shows that the only thing Mel want to do is escape from the world, and hope that caused the event to change her life never happened. “I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?” Melinda says that she want to sleep, to get a coma or amnesia would be better that she doesn’t have to remember what Andy Evans did to him. It shows that she escapes the world, the truth by sleeping so that she doesn’t have to face the judges from the world.

In conclusion, the novel that describes Melinda suffers from depression by “feeling of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness”, “thoughts of death, or suicide attempts” and “difficulty sleeping, early-morning awakening, or oversleep”. At Melinda feeling of worthlessness and helplessness that she has nowhere can express her emotion and she is worthlessness of describing herself is nothing. At the thoughts of death or suicide, she uses the paper clip to scratch her hand and scream by stuffing her mouth with an old cloth. Also, Melinda’s problem of difficulty sleeping and oversleep shows she escapes the world through she doesn’t have to judge by the world.