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Speak 15271 Views
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Description:
The main character of Speak doesn't speak. Watch this video to find out why.
Transcript
- 00:04
Speak, a la Shmoop. Think about the last time you got into a crowded
- 00:12
elevator. It wasn’t exactly a hotbed for conversation,
- 00:15
was it? In fact, you may as well have been taking
- 00:18
the ride with these guys. If silence is golden - as the saying goes
- 00:22
- why does it make us feel anything but? In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, Speak,
Full Transcript
- 00:29
Melinda Sordino is a fourteen-year-old entering high school with a terrible secret.
- 00:34
She doesn’t want to face what happened to her and believes that, if she doesn’t ever
- 00:37
talk about it, it will somehow disappear. But no matter how hard she tries . . .
- 00:43
. . . it doesn’t. In the end, she realizes that she has to break
- 00:48
her silence if she wants to have any hope of reclaiming her life.
- 00:52
Which brings us back to our question - why does silence hold such power in our social
- 00:57
lives? Remember when you were little and you threatened
- 01:01
to hold your breath until you turned blue? It got your mom’s attention, didn’t it?
- 01:07
Silence does the same thing; it gets our attention. It can make us feel awkward, like those folks
- 01:13
in the elevator . . . . . . or it can confuse us when we don’t
- 01:17
know how to respond. And nobody likes feeling incompetent.
- 01:21
Think about conversations you’ve had that stopped right in the middle for no good reason
- 01:27
at all. Didn’t you want to jump right in and fill that dead air as soon as possible?
- 01:30
We’re all so used to noise and stimuli in our lives, that we don’t know what to do
- 01:35
when it’s not there. And while some people can handle silence.
- 01:41
. . . . . many of us can’t.
- 01:42
Maybe that’s why solitary confinement and the “silent treatment” achieve some pretty
- 01:48
dramatic results. It’s not all that easy being alone with
- 01:51
our thoughts. So, if silence confuses us, makes us uncomfortable
- 01:56
and feels awkward, why do we need it at all? Well, there’s no doubt that a little quiet
- 02:03
time helps you figure stuff out. . . . . . and put things into perspective.
- 02:07
There are plenty of times when you just need a break from all the nonsense that’s bombarding
- 02:12
us 24/7 . . . . . . but, like Melinda, we all have to figure
- 02:15
out when we have to stand up and speak out . . .
- 02:17
. . . and when we need to sit down and just be quiet.
- 02:22
So why do you think silence holds such power in our lives?
- 02:28
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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