Speak

Speak

by

Laurie Halse Anderson

Lips Symbol Analysis

Lips Symbol Icon
Melinda hates her appearance, but is especially disgusted by her ragged lips, which she can’t stop picking at and chewing. In a novel called Speak, of course, it is significant that Melinda is fixated on her lips. Since she cannot talk about her own trauma, it makes sense that Melinda would hate and mutilate her own lips, which are so often silent when they should be speaking. At the end of the novel, Melinda is at last able to speak, and it is her rapist Andy Evans who finally falls silent. She has regained her own voice, while “his lips are paralyzed.”

Lips Quotes in Speak

The Speak quotes below all refer to the symbol of Lips. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 6 Quotes

I look for shapes in my face. Could I put a face in my tree, like a dryad from Greek mythology? Two muddy-circle eyes under black-dash eyebrows, piggy-nose nostrils, and a chewed-up horror of a mouth. Definitely not a dryad face. I can’t stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don’t even know.
I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall.

Related Characters: Melinda Sordino (speaker)
Related Symbols: Trees, Seeds, Plants, and Forests, Mirrors, Lips, Blood
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 21 Quotes

I hide in the bathroom until I know Heather’s bus has left. The salt in my tears feels good when it stings my lips. I wash my face in the sink until there is nothing left of it, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. A slick nothing.

Related Characters: Melinda Sordino (speaker), Heather
Related Symbols: Mirrors, Lips, Water, Ice, and Melting
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

It is getting harder to talk. My throat is always sore, my lips raw. When I wake up in the morning, my jaws are clenched so tight I have a headache. Sometimes my mouth relaxes around Heather, if we’re alone. Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze. What is wrong with me? It’s like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis.

I know my head isn’t screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closet is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.

Related Characters: Melinda Sordino (speaker), Melinda’s mother, Melinda’s father, Heather
Related Symbols: Melinda’s Closet, Lips
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 5 Quotes

His lips move poison and she smiles and then she kisses him wet. Not a Girl Scout kiss. He gives her the notebook. His lips move. Lava spills out my ears. She is not any part of a pretend Rachelle-chick. I can only see third-grade Rachel who liked barbecue potato chips and who braided pink embroidery thread into my hair that I wore for months until my mom made me cut it out. I rest my forehead against the prickly stucco.

Related Characters: Melinda Sordino (speaker), Andy Evans, Rachel Bruin
Related Symbols: Lips
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 25 Quotes

I reach in and wrap my fingers around a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans’s neck. He freezes. I push just hard enough to raise one drop of blood. He raises his arms over his head. My hand quivers. I want to insert the glass all the way through his throat, I want to hear him scream. I look up. I see the stubble on his chin, a fleck of white in the corner of his mouth. His lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak. That’s good enough.
Me: “I said no.”

Related Characters: Melinda Sordino (speaker), Andy Evans
Related Symbols: Melinda’s Closet, Mirrors, Lips, Blood
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Speak LitChart as a printable PDF.
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Lips Symbol Timeline in Speak

The timeline below shows where the symbol Lips appears in Speak. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Chapter 6: Home. Work.
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
As she rests, Melinda bites her lips and looks in the mirror, disgusted by what she sees. She is particularly horrified by... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 21: The Marthas
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
...the Marthas enter, Melinda exits. But she watches as the Marthas make fun of her lips and then force Heather to leave, pretending that they themselves decorated the lounge. (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 2: Closet Space
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
...that “[i]t is getting harder to talk,” Melinda describes how her throat is sore, her lips raw, and her jaw clenched. Although she can sometimes talk around Heather, she finds herself... (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 17: Model Citizen
Coming of Age Theme Icon
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
...Heather’s mother asks whether she too wants to be a model. Embarrassed by her scabbed mouth, Melinda does not answer (Heather, meanwhile, tells her mother that Melinda is “‘too shy’”), but... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 12: Picasso
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
Inspired, Melinda draws “a Cubist tree” which looks like “glass shards” and “lips with triangle brown leaves.” Mr. Freeman is pleased and impressed. (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 14: Hall of Mirrors
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
...which a badly burned woman had to be given new skin, Melinda puts her scabbed mouth close to the mirror, and “[a] thousand bleeding, crusted lips push back.” She wonders what... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 19: A Night to Remember
...Noticing that there is blood on the snow, she realizes that she’s bitten through her lip and will need stitches, causing her mother to be late for work. She reflects that... (full context)
Part 4, Chapter 5: My Life as a Spy
Coming of Age Theme Icon
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Appearance versus Reality Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
...up on Andy’s lap, and when the two say goodbye, they kiss. Melinda calls his lips “poison.” Despite her anger, Melinda is paralyzed with memories of her friend in third grade. (full context)
Part 4, Chapter 25: Prey
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Memory and Trauma Theme Icon
...Melinda narrates a series of vivid and fragmented physical sensations, such as feeling his wet mouth on her face, his body against hers, and his teeth on her neck. (full context)
Coming of Age Theme Icon
Communication versus Silence Theme Icon
Family and Friendship Theme Icon
Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression Theme Icon
Wishing that she could “hear him scream,” Melinda realizes that Andy’s “lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak.” She tells him that she said no, and he nods.... (full context)