Birds Symbol Analysis

Birds appear multiple times in the text of Speak—the most memorable of these appearances, of course, being the doomed turkey that Melinda’s mother attempts to cook on Christmas. After Melinda’s mother ruins the bird by forgetting to defrost it, and her father mutilates it with a chainsaw, the parents bury the bird. Melinda, however, digs its bones up and makes it into a disturbing work of art. Although this is a darkly comic subplot, the dead and mutilated bird represents the freedom that Melinda believes she has lost. The art she makes, meanwhile, has two meanings: on one hand, by placing a Barbie head within the turkey bones, Melinda is expressing how trapped and alone she feels within her own mutilated mind. On the other hand, her ability to turn the ruined turkey into art represents her ability to move on from her own trauma. By the end of the novel, birds have become an unambiguous symbol of freedom and joy. When Melinda realizes that there is something missing from her crucial tree sketch, she adds birds, which symbolize her own eventual release from the trauma and depression that have burdened her throughout the book.