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Part 1, Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Speak, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Communication versus Silence
Appearance versus Reality
Family and Friendship
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression
Memory and Trauma
Summary
Analysis
On an unspecified date between Halloween and Thanksgiving, Melinda is horrified to see IT in the hallway flirting with a cheerleader. As IT passes her, he winks. Melinda feels as if her “lips are stitched together,” but is thankful for this feeling, because it keeps her from vomiting. She comments that he is her “nightmare and I can’t wake up.”
This passage marks the first appearance of the as-yet unnamed IT, a male student who sits at the center of Melinda’s trauma—and thus a clue to what that trauma was. So unable is she to communicate, however, that she cannot even think his name, let alone describe her connection to him.
Themes
