Skip to main content

What does the quote,“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time,” from Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak mean? What...

Mr. Freeman says that quotes on page 122 of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. Mr. Freeman is Melinda's art teacher and the one adult who seems to register that something significant and traumatic has happened to Melinda... something that needs to be expressed. Mr. Freeman realizes Melinda is slowly withering away and her lack of self-expression and inability to communicate are two major causes for Melinda's withering. Mr. Freeman attempts to use his class and its assigned project (to artistically represent one thing over and over again over the course of the class— in Melinda's case, a tree) to crack open Melinda's hardened emotional exterior and to coax her out of her depressed stupor. The part of his speech following this quote is even more telling:



"You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know."



Mr. Freeman doesn't want to see Melina fail or throw her life away on a passionless existence comprised only of suffering. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more