More handpicked essays just for you.
Introduction of Helen Keller
The story entitled The life of Helen Keller
Essay about helen keller being blind and deaf
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Helen Keller was a woman who provided an exceptional example of conquering physical disabilities, and provided encouragement for others similarly afflicted. At the age of nineteen months she suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Because of this, she could not speak and was entirely shut off from the world. But she rose above her disabilities to gain international fame and to help disabled people live fuller lives.
In the 1880s the law classed individuals both deaf and blind as idiots. A physician who examined her, however, believed that Keller’s intelligence could be developed, and her parents had hope for her. They had read Charles Dickens’ report of the aid given to another blind and deaf girl, Laura Bridgman. When Helen was 6 years old, her parents took her to see Alexander Graham Bell, famed teacher of the deaf and inventor of the telephone. As a result of his advice, Anne Mansfield Sullivan began to teach Helen on March 3, 1887. Sullivan had been almost blind in early life, but her sight had been partially restored. Until her death in 1936 she remained Helen’s teacher and constant companion.
Sullivan was able to make contact with Helen’s mind through the sense of touch. She used a manual alphabet by which she spelled out words on Helen’s hand. The initial breakthrough came when Sullivan pumped water from a well onto Keller’s hand and then spelled out the word for water. Gradually, the child was able to connect words with objects. Once she understood, her progress was rapid. At ten, she pleaded to relearn how to speak. Initially this seemed unattainable, but Sullivan discovered that Keller could be taught sounds by putting her fingers on Sullivan’s throat and feeling the vibrations. The touching sto...
... middle of paper ...
...w courage to blind people.
Keller’s writings reveal her interest in the beauty of things taken for granted by those who can see and hear. Her other books include: Optimism, or My Key to Life (1903); The World I Live In (1908); The Song of the Stone Wall (1910); Out of the Dark (1913); My Religion (1929); Midstream: My Later Life (1930); Journal (1938); Let Us Have Faith (1940), and The Open Door (1957). Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages.
The motion picture Helen Keller in Her Story (1954) was about Keller’s life. William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker (1959) (which won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize) and its motion-picture adaptation (1962) described how Sullivan made contact with Keller through the sense of touch. Her life has once and for all proved that the only “handicaps” a person possesses are ones that are mentally self-imposed.
Everyone cried a little inside when Helen Keller, history's notorious deaf-blind-mute uttered that magic word 'wa' at the end of the scientifically baffling classic true story. Her ability to overcome the limitations caused by her sensory disabilities not only brought hope for many like cases, but also raised radical scientific questions as to the depth of the brain's ability.
“It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come. I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it” (Keller 146). The ability to actually comprehend words and associate those words to thoughts and feelings rejuvenated her. Keller was reborn that day, with a new ‘vision’ and a new direction. What started that day, culminated into Keller becoming the first deaf person to earn a bachelors degree. She learnt to speak and ‘hear’ by following the movements of people’s lips. Keller was extremely hardworking and she personified willpower and diligence by patiently untangling the taboos of society to prove her critics wrong.
Helen Keller has had an influence on society by becoming a role model for the deaf and blind. When she was 19 months she came down with an illness called “scarlet fever”. As a result of the illness, Helen Keller became blind and deaf, leaving her not able to see and hear. Many people didn’t believe in Helen Keller being able to learn, but she ended up proving everyone wrong. Later on in her life with the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan, Helen learned to read, write and speak. Helen Keller once said “While they were saying it couldn’t be done, it was done” (Keller). Helen was born June 27, 1880 from a family of southern landowners with two older sisters in Tuscumbia Alabama. Kate and Arthur Keller found a young woman at the Perkins Institution to teach Helen how to communicate. A month later after Anne Sullivan’s arrival, she had already taught Helen at the age of six the word water and that words have a meaning. Once Helen learned to communicate with others by using ...
Helen Keller was born on June 27th, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She was a bright infant, interested in everything around her, and imitating adults at a very young age. In February of 1882, she was struck with an illness which left her deaf and blind. For several years, Helen had very little communication with the rest of the world, except for a few signs which she used with her family. When she was six, her parents wanted desperately to do something to help their strong-willed, half-wild, child. They were far from any deaf or blind schools, and doubted that anyone would come to the little town to educate their deaf and blind child. They heard of a doctor in Baltimore who had helped many seemingly hopeless cases of blindness, but when he examined Helen, there was nothing he could do for her. However, he referred them to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell who recommended Anne Sullivan to teach Helen.
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller believed that in order to be successful and make a difference, problems must be confronted, tried, and solved. Keller’s words of wisdom go hand in hand with the American way of success today. Without argumentation, criticism, or suffering, the nation cannot progress and succeed. With people like Helen Keller in society, who are always ready to challenge popular beliefs, America can and will continue to progress.
This gives her hope for many new things to be learned. For example, Keller portrays her emotions by stating, “That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, but barriers that could in time be swept away.”. This quote repeats the feeling of hope in Keller’s mind that she can learn unlimited
He grew up with his family as strong culture of speech therapy because his father and grandfather were involved for speech therapy with him that they encouraged them to become public speaker and Deaf Educator. His father invented of visible speech what he was development of alphabet and symbols to understand of different mouth movements as concept of reading-lip. In 1870, his family moved out to Canada from England, then one year later, moved out to Boston from Canada. He still motivates for Deaf educator. He taught them for signs, the alphabet, and speech in success of teaching method for deaf educator in Boston School for the Deaf. He has public speakers in large audiences, and then somehow he noticed three Deaf women what they attractive him. Also, they are different degree of hearing level. They have different background as speech, sign language skills, and experiences. Bell attracted on last young Deaf woman. Alexander discovered for new invent of telephone in 1874, because he tried to make new hearing aids to help Deaf people able to hear by noise and sound even help them to development of speech. It was successful for developed of his invention of the telephone. In 1874, Bell tested to called his assistant, Thomas Watson and said: “Watson I want to come here.” (Nicken, 133 pp.) After first invention, he had another inventions of technology is photo-phone. Bell attracted and fell love with his deaf student mentioned is Mabel Hubbard. She was illness to become Deaf cause by scarlet fever in five years old. She never learn sign language as manual communication, also, she uses speech and lipreading as well. That how she affect to change Bell’s mind to lead of against of sign language and Deaf’s marriage. He decided to studied for science in eugenic what he wants to help Deaf people become able to hearing and speaking to other people as hearing people consider of “normalization.”
Annie Sullivan was a determined teacher, who taught a blind and deaf girl to communicate with her family. In the play, “The Miracle Worker” written by William Gibson, Helen Keller was a blind and deaf child, who was born in Alabama, in the late 1800’s. Her parents, Kate and Captain Keller, were at a loss for a solution, until they hired Annie Sullivan, a young teacher who was curious about Helen’s condition and wanted to teach her how to interact and communicate with others. Time passes, and Annie starts to teach Helen with a feisty manner, as she starts using force to teach Helen how to respect Annie and her family. At the end, Annie had successfully taught Helen respect and discipline, and how to sign an vast amount of words. Annie Sullivan was a teacher to a deaf and blind girl. Throughout the story, Annie was curious, feisty and caring, and
Overall, Helen Keller’s speech displays an argument that blind people are just as great as normal people and that people should care about blind people too. This speech also provides our world today with an important message. Everyone should take part in helping out other people and therefore help make the world a better and delightful place for
Fast forward to the year 1813 in Hartford, Connecticut; a young man by the name of Thomas Gallaudet notices a young deaf girl, Alice Cogswell, having difficulty communicating with her siblings during outdoor play. Sympathetic to her disability, he takes the initiative to try to communicate with her by writing a word in the dirt with a stick, then pointing to the object that correlated to the written word. After patient encouragement the words were soon understood by the young girl, and “In that one afternoon, Gallaudet was convinced that she had the capability to learn just like the hearing kids” (33).
Often, many people do not know of such individuals. If one has heard of them is it most likely in the category of amazing individuals who are able to overcome life?s most challenging obstacles and succeed in ways never imagined. This is just not so. These women do not succeed in spite of their disabilities, but instead succeed because of them. Mary Duffy, Vassar Miller, and Freida Kahlo have all forced their audiences to visually give attention to their disability and thus have challenged societies stereotypical assumptions, whether on stage, in writing, or on a canvas. Their endeavors are summarized in the words of Frieda Kahlo, "Feet, what do I need them for, if I have wings to fly?"
The beginning of her life began when she was first born on June 27, 1880, in a plantation known as Ivy Green located in Alabama. Keller was healthy and most found her attractive with curly, blond hair and pale blue eyes. (ww.nndb.com). Shortly after she began getting congested in the brain and stomach, Keller lost both her sight and her ability to hear. Doctors informed Kate Adams Keller, Helen Keller’s mother, she would not survive past the age of two years old. However, through hope and dedication, Kate Keller contacted a physician. He claimed he could be no help, and sent them to meet Alexander Graham Bell, who, in return, handed them off to Perkins Institute for the Blind. Director Michael Anagnos called a former student by the name of Anne Sullivan. Although Sullivan was also partially blind, she could still manage to help Helen Keller and Sullivan was brought home with her. After many months with no success, Sullivan led Keller to a water pump in the back yard. She ran the cold water over Keller’s hand as she made the hand signs spelling out w-a-t-e-r in Keller’s palm. Something invisible snapped inside Helen Keller and that is ...
When Anne first met Helen Keller, she was blind, deaf, and mute since she was 19 months old. Helen was left undisciplined, ill tempered, and neglected with no contact with the outer world. Anne’s difficult job was to tame Helen. Helen screamed, bit, hit, and kicked Anne, but Anne, faithfully, never gave up. Anne Sullivan displayed the virtues of fortitude, compassion, and most importantly patience while caring for Helen. Anne had a respect for life that gave her the belief that all humans were created in the image of God, and WE ALL ARE GOOD. Anne Sullivan treated Helen with equality, just as Jesus cured the lepers when the rest of the community cast them out of society.
Helens mom and dad noticed that she needed a little special help, so they decided it would be best to contact the Perkins Institute for the blind in Boston. The director told them about Anne Sullivan. She had also been blind, but the doctor saved her eyesight in surgery. Anne arrived on March 3, 1887 and she immediately began to work with Helen.
The next 6 years of Helen’s life were spend in tantrums, darkness and all around loneliness. “I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot it had ever been different, until she came- my teacher” (Keller 1902 Pg. 8). She had many fits, and refused any instruction. Her family was very poor, and could afford very little. The “teacher” as Helen called her; was Anne Sullivan who had contracted trachoma as a child and was as well legally blind. Annie was said to have saved Helen. Within 6 months of teaching from Sullivan Keller quickly advanced. She became well known to reading and writing in Braille, as well as writing in a manual alphabet.