The Life and Structure of a Tree

            In the novel Speak, there is a great deal of symbols ranging from names to nature.  Melinda has lost her voice and is slowly letting herself fade away.  Throughout the novel she is trying to complete her art project around her assigned topic of tree.  This is a significant not only to the story itself, but also to Melinda’s identity and painful path in finding her voice.

            In order to understand how symbolic the tree is to Melinda, we must explore the structure and life of a tree.  They go through “phases” of life.  They are dormant in the winter, with little life shown on the outside, and eventually go through spring where buds appear and they soon turn green.  The beginning of the novel shows Melinda in the phase of winter, she is dormant, with little life showing on the outside.  She even acknowledges the lifeless in her paintings by drawing her trees almost near death, with little life showing on the outside.

            Melinda randomly chooses the word tree from the bowl in art class and it becomes her assignment for the rest of the year to “turn that object into a piece of art” (12).  At first she believe it to be too easy, but she struggles with her trees the rest of the school year.  Melinda struggles with carving the linoleum blocks into trees that live up to her expectations.  She wants her tree to be “a strong old oak tree with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun” (78).  Melinda has used the tree to describe what she envisions for herself:  A strong young woman, who happens to have scars, but is still reaching onward with her life.  But we must focus on her onward struggle to accomplish not only carving the tree but also drawing the tree that lives up to this vision (not only for the tree, but herself as well).

            Melinda also stands alone, similar to most trees.  She has no true friends and her family has disregarded her. When remembering happier times with her family, Melinda also links trees to those cheerful moments. While studying fruit in biology, she reminisces about the time her family went to the apple orchard.  Not only does Melinda flashback visually to this past moment, but she can feel the sunshine, smell the apples and in lab she bites the apple to aid her in the memory (66).  It is when she begins to clean up her front yard that she connect to her father and mother again.  Melinda feels pulled to cleaning up the dead leaves in her yard.  She rakes until she is sore and fills a sort of exhilaration when she sees the life of green under all of the dead.  In getting rid of the dead leaves, her father notices the dead oak tree and comments that the tree is sick (167). (This is also reflective of Siobhan’s comment of the disease on Melinda’s lips (45).  Soon he has someone at the house cutting down the dead branches.  Her father goes so far as to claim that he is saving it, making it possible “for the tree to grow again” (187).  This moment is incredibly symbolic for Melinda and her family.  They are reconnecting through cleaning up the dead leaves and her father is foreshadowing the strength Melinda has once she lets go of the “dead” that holds her back.

            Melinda’s friends have abandoned her, not knowing the truth she hides inside.  It is when Ivy starts to reach out that Melinda and reaffirms her ability in her artwork that Melinda is able to stat acknowledging her talent. Ivy tells her, “You’re better than you think you are” (146), and to “just let it out.”  It is after Ivy tells her that she has a great start there that everything seems to turn around for Melinda, she reflects, “She’s right” (146). 

            Soon Melinda is focused on drawing trees that have life in them (153) and also have roots (160).  It is with the encouragement of Ivy and her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, who pushes her to question her trees and what is “wrong” with them that she is able to gain the “voice” when she is attacked again.  Even when Andy is attacking her, she is referencing trees, “My fingers wave overhead, looking for a branch, a limb, something to hang on to.  A block of wood—“ (195).  In the end, it is essentially a tree that saves her—in shattering the glass with the wood she is able to use a shard and stop Andy.

 While Melinda was raped, she looked up through the trees.  Through the novel she struggles with finding her voice and uses her art project and the trees around her to aid her voice.  Her final project is “definitely breathing… the bark is rough, …roots knob out of the ground… and the crown reached for the sun, tall and healthy.  The new growth is the best part” (196).  Melinda’s final tree is not perfect, but that’s what makes it just right for her.  She has been through a lot and has the scars to prove it.  She is now reaching upwards and moving forward, but most of all, she is strong:  All like the tree she has drawn.  She has been through the winter dormant stage, silent, almost dead, now she is green and growing.