A Revised and De-Shelled Turtle

          Turtle necks, ew.  Fashion suicide and extremely uncomfortable.  Yet Melinda wears turtle necks everyday.  This is complete symbolism for Melinda being like a turtle and hiding inside of a shell.  The shell is her skin.  Melinda is hiding inside of her own body, but it she can't break out of her shell.  She is stuck inside of her own body.  This is why I believe the theme of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is being trapped.

          Readers can see that Melinda often shuts down around people.  As said on page 95, "I'm allergic to hornets.  One sting and my sting bubbles with hives and my throat closes up."  I believe that Melinda isn't really allergic to hornets, she is just trying to say that when she is talking to someone and they say something she is reminded of something that bothers her, she shuts down.  Like turtles, when they get scared, they go back in their shells.  It's like she is getting pulled back into her body prison as soon as she pokes her head out of her shell. 

          However, Melinda does reach out for help.  On page 47, it says "Now, when I really want to leave, no one will give me a ride."  Here Melinda is looking for someone to break her shell from the outside since her trying from the inside didn't work.  Yet there is no one to help Melinda, or more correctly, there is no one  that wants to help Melinda.
          What scared her so badly that she thought she needed a shell?  Well, it's not what, it's who.  The answer is... Andy Evans.  The least gentleman-like boy in high school.  After "the incident" happened with him at the high school party,  Melinda became the tied-up turtle, bound and locked inside herself.

          When most teenagers are breaking out in acne, Melinda is breaking out of her shell.  Melinda got stuck inside her shell by thinking it was a safe place, protection.  Unfortunately, by the time she realized that it was a trap, it was too late.  No one understood Melinda, but did anyone even try?  Melinda needed help to break out and be freed from the prison inside herself and when she finally received help,she was able to break out.  Melinda no longer needs her shell.  It is simply a discarded memory.