Speak only in Silence

Authors Note: This is a text-analysis piece about the book Speak In this piece I explain why the setting of a story is significant and how the plot would be affected if the setting changed.

       

In the book Speak by Laurie Hals Anderson, the setting is very important. The main character’s name is Melinda Sordino and the book is set in modern day.  Speak  is also set in Syracuse, New York specifically in Merry-Weather high school.  Having the setting be in a high school effects the plot dramatically. It determines the mood of the story. For example, in Speak the plot is all about high school drama and reputations. If the setting changed then the plot would change significantly. If the book was set in the summer for example everything would be different. The author would have to modify the characters and the conflicts. The book would change into a completely different story!  It probably wouldn’t even be called Speak! For instance, if the book was set in the summer it wouldn’t be about high school reputations and the main conflict. It would be about how she went through that conflict and how she is going to go through it when she gets to high school. The plot would be way different.If the setting was set in elementary school, that would be a different example of a setting change. If the book was set in elementary school, the conflict would change. Instead of the conflict being a inappropriate issue that happened during a high school party, the conflict would be something childish like a boy stealing a shy girl's homework. The book would still be called Speak because I think the conflict would be that the girl was too scared of the boy that took her homework to speak up. It would be more of a child book rather than a young-adult book.   So, as you can see by the example i gave you,the setting in stories are very important so you need to make sure you know and understand them!