Grown Up

 Authors Note: This piece is a quote analysis for how this affected the book

 “This is the Death Voice, the Voice that means business. When I was a kid, this Voice made me pee my pants. It takes more now. I look up at Mom square in the eye, then rinse my plate and retreat to my room. Deprived of Victim, Mom and Dad holler at each other. I turn up the music and drown out the noise.”

In this quote from the book Speak Melinda is our main character. In this quote Melinda's grades are really low and her mom is taking out the Death Voice. This is the most powerful voice that her mother possesses. Melinda even says that it used to make her pee, but it has no affect to Melinda anymore. She is used to it now and walks right out of the room.

This is a huge part of the book because Melinda is becoming her own person now. Now the "Death Voice" doesn't even affect her. If you took out this passage then you would take out the carelessness of her paying attention to class and to her parents. Right now she is at the breaking point. Right now Melinda must decide to become more social or become a more well rounded student, but her parents must also choose to become more connected to their kid and help Melinda through this unfortunate school year.

Growing

In Laurie Anderson's Speak Melinda is constantly using a tree for her art project, but she cannot convert it into a good feeling. With her inabilaty to grow Melinda has a tough time trying to fit in with the other High Schoolers. With no friends and nobody who cares about her how can she grow?

Melinda starts off as a happy 8th grader with great friends and a happy life, everything starts off romantically and excellent, but then it all flips. Melinda is now at the bottom of the trench. All of her friends have abandoned her and nobody will speak to her. Now she is the girl who crashed the big party, but then she meets Mr. Freeman who lets her express her feelings through art.

Mr. Freeman started off the year, by having everyone pick an object out of a hat that they had to draw in every piece for the rest of the year. When it was Melinda's turn she picked out a tree. Throughout the year Melinda struggled to put her tree into a happy state. She could not put leaves on her tree, without any leaves on a tree it leaves it in a depressing state. With no leaves on her trees it clearly represents her. Melinda is a person who has no leaves, no personality, no friends, and no room to grow.

Melinda's room is supposed to be home to a 5th grader. This is Proof that her trees also represent her. It clearly represents her inability to grow as a person. I believe that Melinda felt dead inside like dried out falling leaves, but remains still clinging on to the branches of a tree, still hanging onto reality.

When you look at how closely a tree represents her it makes sence how messed up her life is. When you look at a dead tree almost no one would like to have it in their yard, so why would someone want some broken down, dried up girl as a friend? If Melinda wants to be more social, and have friends she has to realize where she is in life and grow from there. 

Downsizing

Propaganda is like a boomerang; it keeps coming back and hitting you straight in the face. The constant books and commercials and posters were everywhere, when Hitler was in the office. Everywhere the Germans turned they heard something about Hitler being great or hate this religion and shun these people. In the end average Joes have fallen to propaganda and brainwashing in history and in literature.

In Fahrenheit 451, America has taken away the rights to own books and all books must be burned and disposed of. The society of Fahrenheit 451 is very ironic. The people of this setting think of watching tv shows that have a script for you to say what they want you to say. The government is controlling these people and making them think what the government wants them to think. The government has succeeded in having the population being brainwashed by their evil doing.

Similarly in the short story "Harrison Bergeron", the society accepts their terms of having to wear their special handicaps. In the story all people literally equal. If a person is smart then they are given a handicap to reduce their thoughts, if a person is athletic then they are given a chain to slow them down, but if they are just plain dumb, then they are the norm and are given no handicaps.When a society has no way to think and no way to think about what is happening to them, they are being brainwashed right in front of themselves and they don't even know it.

The propaganda of Fahrenheit 451 and "Harrison Bergeron" are both different, but they have both one meaning: to sabotage our nation and make us think the way the government wants us to think. With these brainwashing techniques, the government will be successful controlling our minds.

Cheshire Creeps

"He was eating a light supper at nine in the evening when the front door cried out in the hall and Mildred ran from the parlor like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius. Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their hands. Montag stopped eating. They were like monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes, he saw their Cheshire Cat smiles burning through the walls of the house and now they were screaming at each other above the din." Page 93 Fahrenheit 451

 In the passage above guy is definitely looking at the women like they were mad. Mildred and her friends were running into a death trap, the volcano symbolizes the propaganda the government was using against them. With this being a regular treat they could fool anyone who lived in America to be pulled into this trap.

The description of these woman is almost like an irony. They were giggling and anticipating to run and watch their favorite government controlled show. It was almost like they were being controlled, because if you have seen Alice in Wonderland the Cheshire Cat has an inhumanly smile, and in my own opinion, it is very creepy. Now by adding another fire reference with burning that almost makes it like they are smiling like the devil.