Summary Of 'Speak' | Character Analysis

Melinda Sordino starts out her freshman year (ninth grade) in Merry Weather High School. She is being called as a “squealer” for calling the police to a house party in last year’s summer. Her real reason for calling the police was she was raped by Andy Evans, a senior, at the party. She is too traumatized by the event, which in turn makes her mute; speaking has become a burden to her. Therefore, no one knows the truth and misunderstood her. In school, she has to deal with social rejections by her peers, including being shunned by her friends, Nicole, Ivy and her best friend, Rachel Bruin. The only new friend that she has is her lab partner, Dave Petrakis. Because of the rejections she faces, she becomes a loner in school.

Melinda is also unable to tell her parents about the experience as her parents are too busy with their own matters. Her mother is a busy businesswoman; her father is unemployed, but also does not spend much time with her daughter. Even though they notice a change in their daughter, like her behaviour and her grades, they are still unable to determine the reason, and think that it is her attitude problem. Life starts to change when Melinda starts her art class with Mr. Freeman. Melinda starts to express her feelings through art. With the help of Mr. Freeman and Dave, Melinda slowly regains her confidence, even though she sometimes still thinks back the traumatic event. As she overcomes her fears, she finally has the courage to tell Rachel, who is having relationship with Andy Evans, the truth. Soon after that, Andy comes to threaten Melinda when he knows that she reveals the truth to Rachel. Melinda is able to fight back. At last, she is able to tell her mother the traumatic event openly.

Description of Character

Melinda Sordino is a 13 year old, ninth grader studying in Merry Weather High School. She went to a house party last summer with her three good friends. Unfortunately, she got raped by a senior, Andy Evans. She had no choice but to call off the party by calling the police, which in turn arrested everyone in the party. This event has caused everyone to hate her and labels her as a “squealer”. She has not told anyone about this and living with learned helplessness because she is rejected by her peers. From what her parents say in the movie, Melinda was a bright student and a happy child, but she does not even tell her parents about it. She gets annoyed when her mother thinks that her muteness is her attitude problem.

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In this movie she uses sardonic humour to show her inner thoughts about her surroundings, for example, she says, “My English teacher has no face, I call her ‘Hair Woman’,” and “It’s impossible to listen to Miss Kane (Biology teacher). Her voice sounds like an engine that won’t turn over. Plus she laughs at her own joke.”

She finds comfort and support in her art class, where her year long assignment is to draw a tree. This has played a major role in her life. She uses an abandoned store room in her school as her art collections. All of her collections are trees that she has drawn. This has started to change her life. For instance, she finally confronts to Heather that she does not like her in the first place, and she is also able to fight back when Andy is threatening her. Besides, Melinda still cares about her ex-best friend, Rachel, who is dating with Andy Evans. She fears that Rachel will suffer the same fate as she is. She tried her best to break her barrier of speaking and finally confronts to Rachel about it.

Content Analysis

I believe the character, Melinda Sordino, should be diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with selective mutism. According to the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR), to be diagnosed with PTSD, “the person has to have experienced, witnessed/ was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others, and the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.” As for selective mutism,

Colman (2009) stated that it is a mental disorder of childhood or adolescent whose essential feature is a persistent failure to speak in a certain social situations in which speaking is expected, such as at school or among peers, despite a proven ability to speak in other situations. To satisfy the diagnostic criteria the behavior must interfere with educational or occupational achievement or with social interaction and must not be attributable to a lack of knowledge or facility with the language required in the specified situations, or to embarrassment about a communication disorder such as stuttering (p.680).

In this movie, Melinda fulfills the basic criteria of PTSD, in which she got raped by Andy Evans (traumatic event), in a house party. At first, before the rape, Melinda does not believe that she is actually with Andy – he is a famous, handsome senior in her high school-and she also has some interests in him, so they dance together and kiss together in the party. After that, Melinda starts to realize something is going wrong when Andy starts to make out with her in his car, in which Andy cheats her to go for a ride. Melinda tries to push away, but Andy is too strong. In fear of her life, she got raped with an intense fear and helpless.

According to the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR), a person with PTSD should have reexperienced the traumatic event in a few ways. In this case, Melinda has fulfilled two symptoms in this criterion. The first symptom is “recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perception” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Melinda often has recollection of the traumatic event. For instance, she thinks back the aftermath of the rape, where she was very anxious and wanted to find a phone (to call the police) in the party. This recollection takes place in a toilet, where she is wiping off a stain on her blouse, after she gets jeered at by her peers. Another example is when she receives crayons and a drawing book from her parents as a Christmas gift, she thinks back the time where she returned home, and could not find her parents aftermath of the rape. Another symptom is the recollection of distressing dreams of the event. Melinda dreams about the point where she is raped by the senior. She nearly screams when she finally finds out that it is her mother, who is waking her up.

The next criterion is constant avoidance of any stimuli that is associated to the traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Melinda fulfills three symptoms, which are avoiding conversations that associated with the trauma, avoiding activities that may arouse recollection of the trauma and the feeling of separation and estrangement from others (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Melinda always avoids Andy in school. However, there is one scene in the movie, where Andy is asking Melinda where Rachel is, shows distress in Melinda. Andy stands by the Art class entrance, approaching nearer to Melinda. He says,

“Have you seen Rachel (silence) Bruin? (silence) She supposes to meet me (silence) Hello? Anybody home? Are you deaf? (silence) I was thinking that…”

Melinda goes silent all the way. Besides, she also avoid going to Dave’s house. Melinda says,

“Dave Petrakis invited me over to do lab homework. I said no. No, thanks. I just, I can’t.”

She is probably afraid that she might feel distress and worried, when she is alone with him and also it would remind her about the event. Next, she also feels estrangement from others. This is where she says,

“There’s no point talking to my ex-friends. Our clan the ‘The Plain Janes’ has been absorbed by rival groups. Nicole hangs out with ‘the Jocks’. Rachel went all ‘Euro’. Ivy straddles two crowds, ‘the Goths’ and ‘the Marthas’. And there’s me, I’m clanless.”

The last criterion is the increase of arousal which is not present before the trauma. When she sees Rachel goes towards Andy in a basketball game, her heart beat goes fast, difficult to breathe and shivers. Apart from that, the way that she describes the teachers and also the expression that she responses, shows how she is irritated by them. For instance, she calls her English teacher, ‘Hair Women’, who has uncombed hair, and avoids eye contact with her students. She shows a bit of anger when she is called to sit at the front row, by Mr. Neck (her history teacher). She even criticized the subject as follows,

“We’re studying American history the ninth time in nine years. Every year they say we’re going to get right up to the present, but we always get stuck in the industrial revolution.”

The main behavioral response after the trauma that Melinda shows is selective mutism. As stated in the definition above, one’s behavior ” must interfere with educational or occupational achievement … must not be attributable to a lack of knowledge or facility with the language required in the specified situations, or to embarrassment about a communication disorder such as stuttering” (Colman, 2009). For Melinda, this behavior has affected her grades in school. Due to her mutism, she asks Dave to help her to deliver a speech – which is not under the requirement of Mr. Neck, which is to deliver the speech of her own — for her extra credit. That is why this has made Mr. Neck fed up of her. This scene is illustrated below,

Dave: “The Suffragettes fought for their right to speak. They were attacked, arrested, and thrown in jail for daring to do what they wanted to do. Like them, Melinda is willing to stand up for what she believes, that no one should be forces to give speeches.”

Mr. Neck: “What is this? Melinda has to deliver the report to the class as part of the assignment.”… ” When I say oral, I mean oral. Now you (Dave), sit down! And you (Melinda), read that report. Open your mouth, Sordino. Open your damn mouth!”

After this she is sent to the school principal’s office. This scene also shows her mutism, where her parents do not seem to know what went wrong with her, like her mother says, “Oh, for the love of God, open your mouth, Melinda” and “She’s mute. She’s mute. She’s not saying anything.”Other than this, Melinda also claims that speaking hurts her. This scene is illustrated where Ivy (ex-friend) is bringing her to the nurse office. She wants to say something to her, but she claims that her throat is dry and hurts. She also has learned helplessness where she says, “All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. No one really cares what you have to say. I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.”

Overall, in this movie, I believe it portrays a whole year life event of Melinda because it shows the first day of school until Christmas. Hence, Melinda’s symptoms have been going on for more than a month. Therefore, I believe that Melinda should be diagnosed with PTSD with selective mutism.

Reflection

This movie is based on a same title name novel, which is written by Laurie Halse Anderson in 2001 (Kapavik & Moore, 2005). I think this is a good movie to illustrate what a girl is being through after a date rape. I think most of the victims are not as courageous like Melinda, who is able to stand up and speak about the rape event. I believe there are a lot of teenage girls, who are victims of raping, still do not have the courage to tell others the truth for months even for years. Thus, many of them suffered from undiagnosed PTSD. It is not fair for them to be treated as an outcast by their peers and also to be neglected by their parents and also by teachers. By seeing Melinda slowly recovers from PTSD, I wonder art therapy could be a good treatment for people not only suffers from PTSD, but also depression as well. I think art is a good alternative way of expressing feelings that cannot be described verbally. Hence, this therapy can be considered instead of giving antidepressant to suppress depression.

Implication

I think this movie helps students to know the psychological process of a PTSD sufferer’s life. Moreover, this movie nearly illustrates a real life situation of a girl’s life after a date rape. It indeed brings out the core symptoms of the disorder as mentioned above well.

I think this movie tries to emphasize selective mutism can occur after a traumatic event, even though this condition is often seen in preschoolers, who has trouble adapting social situation in school (Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 2009; Mash & Wolfe, 2010; Davison, et. al., 2004).

There is a case study done in year 2009, a 4 year old girl was diagnosed with PTSD and selective mutism after a dog bite. She was attacked by a neighbor’s dog one day, and was sent to a hospital by the dog’s owner. At the second day of hospitalization, the child was in depressed mood and showed mild withdrawal from contacts with others. From that on, she refused to participate any conversation with anyone, and used only gestures to communicate when in the home setting. Besides, she also displayed symptoms of PTSD like recurrent memories when questioned about dogs and reluctance to play with toy dogs. Psychiatrist used six months to slowly regain her comfort in speaking (Anyfantakis et. al, 2009). Hence, this can be added to the students’ knowledge that some symptoms in PTSD can be comorbid with other disorder.