Melinda Sordino starts the high school as an outcast. She remains silent and does not tell anoyone about the accident and she always goes away when she
meets Andi Evans. She is given an art work by her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, that she has to deal with tree. She cannot do her art work and she thinks that her trees
are dying instead because she cannot make it live. She gets a bravery to speak up from her art teacher, her father and her friend, Ivy. At the end of the story, she
finally can fight againts her fear, Andi Evans. This makes her friends no longer treat her as an outcast but as a hero instead, and finally she can finish her art work
perfectly.
B. Approach of the Study
For the study, the writer uses new criticism. According to Kuiper 2011: 229 the basic concept of this approach insists on the intrinsic value of a work of
art and focuses attention on the individual work alone as an independent unit of meaning.
Abrams 1999: 181 says that this approach emphasizes that a work of literature opposes to the critical practice of bringing biography and temperament
of the author, social condition at the time of its production, and psychological and moral effects on the reader. He also adds that this criticism is used to see the
meaning and interactions of words, figure of speech, and symbols. Considering the statements, this study only concentrates on the work of Speak in searching the
relation between the symbols and the main character’s development.
C. Method of the Study
The method used in this study is library-research method. This thesis uses two sources. The main one is the novel entitled Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
and it is published in New York in 2003. The secondary sources are taken from the books and the internet websites related to the theory, approach, and studies.
The are some steps used in this study. Firstly, the writer read the text in several times carefully. The writer focused on the symbols and the main character.
Secondly, the writer looked for the sources from books and internet websites related to the theory, approach, and studies of the short story. The writers
collected the data related to the symbols of the short story and the main character. Thirdly, the writers formulated the problem formulation. Lastly, the writer
answered the problem formulation. The process of analyzing the data is helped by the data with related theory, approach, and studies.
The first step of the analysis is the writer described the characteristics of the main character, Melinda Sordino, using theory of character, characterization,
character development and classified the characteristics into two parts. The first one is the description of the main character before she gets her bravery to face her
trauma and the second one is the description of the main character after she gets her bravery to face her trauma. The second step of the analysis is the writer
mentioned and explained the symbols in the novel using the theory of symbol. The last step of the analysis is the writer linked the development of the main
character and the symbols presented in the novel.
17
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
