As countless eyes look upon Hester Prynne in shame and judgment, hundreds of school students look upon Melinda as a reject, unworthy of acknowledgment.
The bleachers in the gym, the lunchroom, and the school bus all act as public “scaffolds” or settings for torture, in which Melinda must endure the shame of the party incident. Anderson does not write Melinda into any obvious scaffold scenes, but the reader can connect the very public places of humiliation that Melinda is mocked and hated in.
Just as Hester was sentenced to withstand the public humiliation of the scaffold and Arthur privately endured the sickness of guilt and the secret of his illegitimate child, Melinda suffered through public hatred and embarrassment.Īs Hester is doomed to the public humiliation of confronting her sin on the scaffold, Melinda also endures a sort of public punishment. Melinda embodies both Hester and Arthur, in that, she is publicly chastised for her dissolution of the party and inwardly deals with the repercussions and secret of being raped. Looking past these differences, there are clear correlations that exist between the two narratives. Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale engaged in adultery and conceived a child, Pearl. Melinda Sordino is the victim of a drunken rape at high school party. The narrative, the characters, and the literary devices of Speak all point to a modern adaptation of Hawthorne’s narrative more importantly, Anderson seems to use The Scarlet Letter as a vehicle for awareness of social issues and seeking help. It is not enough to acknowledge the mere literary allusion to Hawthorne’s text that exists within Anderson’s novel, we must examine the purpose of this parallel and amalgamation. Interestingly, Anderson seems to present Melinda as the modern amalgamation of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak is told by Melinda after she is brutally raped. Melinda Sordino is a high school girl that everyone loves to hate she is the epitome of social reject.