In the book Speak by Laurie Hale Anderson, showed Melinda's coming of age by representing it with a tree. In the book Melinda was in an art class. They had an assignment where they picked a random item out of a globe and had to work on it for the entire year. Melinda picked a a tree. The tree represents Melinda's coming of age because she had , Stump Stages, Log Stages, and Full Grown Tree.
In the beginning Melinda didn't know how to draw a tree, she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to draw a tree. Those were her "Stump Stages". Basically saying that she was at the beginning of her coming of age. Those were the stages when she didn't want to talk, she wasn't sure of herself. She didn't care. That was the time that she didn't want to tell anyone she was raped. She never spoke up for herself just waited for someone to speak up for her. She wanted to keep it a a secret. An example in the book that show she was in her stump stages was when the art teacher gave her tree, she just said " I learned how to draw a tree in 2nd grade". Melinda never really understood the meaning of the assignment.
In the middle of the book were Melinda's "Log Stages", where she was starting to get to know how to draw the tree, she was starting to get the idea of what the assignment meant. An example that showed me she understood it was, Melinda found a abandoned old janitors closet, and used that as an own personal room, where she worked on her trees and hung up the ones she did bad at and the trees that looked amazing. The log stages was when Melinda started talking, and she even got a friend named David , who helped her stand up for herself to her evil social studies teacher Mr. Neck. It was the stages where Melinda was about to start talking. and when she was hesitating to tell someone she was raped. But she didn't.
In the end of the book Melinda was a " Full Grown Tree" this was when Melinda understood what the assignment meant, and knew what to do. The assignment meant you need to discover yourself in the object. Melinda's old friend Ivy got a clown and she was afraid of clowns, and her doing clown just took the fear out of her. As a a full grown tree Melinda spoke up for herself. She had a friend named Heather in the beginning of the year and she ditched her in the middle of the year, and Heather came crawling back to Melinda for help. She expected Melinda to say yes, but Melinda stood up for herself and said, "No". And this was the stage where she spoke up to tell Rachel aka. " Rachelle" that she was raped by Andy Evans.
In conclusion, the tree represented Melinda's coming of age. Melinda had her stump stages, log stages, and full grown tree. Each stages showed how Melinda grew up. From being someone quiet to someone not that afraid to talk. The book shows great ways to represent coming of age, cause you saw how Melinda cam of age.
