Speak by Anderson Laurie Halse

Author:Anderson, Laurie Halse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Puffin

Speak

CODE BREAKING

Hairwoman has been buying new earrings. One pair hangs all the way down to her shoulders. Another has bells in them like the pair Heather gave me at Christmas. I guess I can't wear mine anymore. There should be a law.

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We are reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones.

It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break-- these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward?

I can't whine too much. Some of it is fun. It's like a code, breaking into his head and finding the key to his secrets. Like the whole guilt thing. Of course you know the minister feels guilty and Hester feels guilty, but Nathaniel wants us to know this is a big deal. If he kept repeating, “She felt guilty, she felt guilty, she felt guilty,” it would be a boring book and no one would buy it. So he planted SYMBOLS, like the weather, and the whole light and dark thing, to show us how poor Hester feels.

I wonder if Hester tried to say no. She's kind of quiet. We would get along. I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with an S maybe, S for silent, for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.

So the code-​breaking part was fun for the first lesson, but a little of it goes a long way. Hairwoman is hammering it to death.

Hairwoman: “The description of the house with bits of glass embedded in the walls--what does it mean?”

Utter silence from the class. A fly left over from fall buzzes against the cold window. A locker slams in the hall. Hairwoman answers her own question.

“Think of what that would look like, a wall with glass embedded in it. It would . . . reflect? Sparkle? Shine on sunny days maybe. Come on, people, I shouldn't have to do this by myself. Glass in the wall. We use that on top of prison walls nowadays. Hawthorne is showing us that the house is a prison, or a dangerous place maybe. It is hurtful. Now, I asked you to find some examples of the use of color. Who can list a few pages where color is described?”

Speak

The fly buzzes a farewell buzz and dies.

Rachel/Rachelle, my ex-​best friend: "Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called 'Symbolism in My Books'? If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this

up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story.

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