Speak Blog

I define myself by the way I act, not the people I hang around with or people I chose to talk to. I would not fall under the category of "He is just doing that so he will look cool." If I do something, someone will benefit from it, whether it be myself or someone else. I do my best to make sure that I never do something for the sole reason that it will make me look cool and fit in. I think that many people do live that way. I think it is unfortunate that they can not trust themselves and have enough self confidence to live how they want to. It is easy to quit and just try to blend in because one can feel strange or awkward when really trying to prevent that makes them more awkward. Personally, I never fell under one group when I was at Zionsville. I was never the super-athletic guy who only hung out with certain people. Most people were not stuck to one singular group. I was also never the guy that someone would pick on to get a cheap laugh. However in Speak I think the Author, Anderson, does a horrible job depicting school. I think that she takes the easy road and just makes the characters define themselves in one sentence. "Our group only talks to these people" or "Our group only goes to parties with this other group." Realistically, I have never seen this happen. People never isolate themselves completely because they don't want that stain on their reputation. In the novel, all of the groups seem to define themselves by who they hangout with or what they talk about, not what they do or enjoy doing. These groups seem to do their best to create only one self and eliminate James' theory. They try to limit the people that know them so that there will only be one view of them. For example, the Marthas force Heather to go through all of these tasks just to see if she will fit in. They don't want anyone to talk to them or hangout with them that isn't just like them in every way. This really isn't possible in real life because people can not live that way.