She's walking through the hall. Nobody looks directly at her. Everyone wonders who she is. Alone. Oblivious. That girl. The one that nobody, yet everybody, wants to talk about. She is new. She is different. Therefore, she is bad. She knows this. She is horribly, gut wrenchingly aware of this. She just wants to blend in to the linoleum floors and badly plastered walls. She will do whatever it takes to blend in. No matter who else she has to hurt along the way. She is a Heather.
Heather, from the novel Speak, has some pretty big personality issues. First, she's really annoying. She's way to peppy and excited for that to be all she's thinking. She acts like she is just the sweet girl from Ohio, but she's not afraid to stab people in the back. She only cares about what people higher on the food chain think of her, not the lowly little outcast. She acted like Melinda's friend until it cam in between her indentured service to the Marthas. Then suddenly, once the Marthas stopped caring entirely, Melinda was suddenly good enough again. She always pretends to be someone else to fit in, but then no one actually likes her for her personality. She's a lot like Ruby from Lock and Key; she tries so hard to fit in, that she almost ruins her entire life. Melinda tried to be a real friend to her, but the second that she really needed Heather, she completely dropped her for a better clique. Who would even want to be friends with someone like that?She always pretends to be someone else to fit in, but then no one actually likes her for her personality. She has to be a better person, or people will stop seeing the pretty outer shell, and realize how horrible she actually is.
Heather has a slightly creepy obsession with becoming a Martha. She Starts wearing matching sweater sets and wool lined pants. She has a sudden urge to become charitable. She has an unfunded love for crafts. She tries to infiltrate a clique that she doesn't even honestly want to be in. She spends all of her time running errands for people that don't care about her at all. I find it ironic that her "best friend's" idols are a woman that spent five months in jail. Wondering why Martha Stewart was in jail? She was found guilty of insider trading. That is the "illegal buying and selling of securities by persons acting on privileged information." Yeah; Martha Stewart had someone telling her what people were doing with their businesses so she could pretty much scam the stock market. Classy, right. These are the people that can be bought. Heather's just trying to become part of the easiest clique. There are no real requirements. It is one of the only groups that you can be a poseur. You don't have to be smart or good at sports. The biggest thing for Heather is that this group is still middle ground. She's not super popular, or too low on the social pyramid. This clique is Heathers gateway to the one thing that she wants most;to fit in.
Heather isn't even a real person,she's just a symbol, a shadow. She represents the people in every story; the girls that will give up the things that they love, for what they they think will make them happier. The new girl that tries so hard to be normal that she becomes the complete opposite. Heather, really needs to get your priorities straight before absolutely nobody cares about you.
No comments:
Post a Comment