Helen Keller may be the world's most famous supercrip. Very few people can claim to have "overcome" disability so thoroughly and spectacularly. A blind and deaf wild child at the age of 7, she became, by the time she published The Story of My Life at 22, one of Radcliffe's most successful and polished students, fluent in Latin, Greek, German, French and (not least) English--not to mention three versions of Braille (English, American, New York Point) and the manual alphabet in which her renowned teacher Anne Sullivan first communicated with her. But let me dispense with the scare quotes for a moment. Helen Keller is famous--and justly so--precisely because she did, in many respects, overcome the physical impairments of deafness and blindness, as well as the formidable social obstacles facing people with disabilities at the end of the nineteenth century. Her story retains its power to startle and inspire even now, just as Anne Sullivan's story remains among the most startling and inspiring tales in the history of pedagogy.
Keller's story is also a member of the genre of disability autobiographies in which the writing of one's life story takes on the characteristics of what the philosopher J.L. Austin called "performative" utterances: The primary function of The Story of My Life, in this sense, is to let readers know that its author is capable of telling the story of her life. The point is hardly a trivial one. Helen Keller was dogged nearly all her life by the charge that she was little more than a ventriloquist's dummy--a mouthpiece for Anne Sullivan, or, later, for the original editor of The Story of My Life, the socialist literary critic John Macy, who married Sullivan in 1905. And even for those who know better than to see Helen Keller as disability's Charlie McCarthy, her education and her astonishing facility with languages nevertheless raise troubling and fascinating questions about subjectivity, individuality and language. Roger Shattuck and Dorothy Herrmann's new edition of The Story of My Life--supplemented as it is with Anne Sullivan's narrative, John Macy's accounts of the book and of Keller's life, Keller's letters and Shattuck's afterword--not only restores Keller's original text but highlights questions about originality and texts--questions that defined Keller's relation to language from the age of 12, when she published a story titled "The Frost King."
The episode is largely forgotten now, but in 1892 it was a national
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.
The Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca once said, “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.” Not everyone is always on the front lines in the battle of good versus evil. Ranks are filled with select soldiers that will take on the fight. Regardless, those willing to take the rough road, the steep hills, and the bad days are the ones that are truly filling the trenches. Anyone can be great; one way to acheive greatness is by studying this characteristic in others.
Helen Keller, a deaf and blind writer and lecturer describes life as “a succession of
The diary of Anne Frank, written over a two-year period, tells about her life while she and her family are in hiding in Holland. They are staying in a secret attic of the office building where Mr. Frank used to work in order to escape from the Nazis during World War II. During their stay in the annex, they are supported by several people in the office building, who risk their own lives to insure the secrecy of the Jewish hideout and to provide them with food and basic supplies. Much of Anne's diary tells about the daily routine of the occupants of the attic.
Jews have perished because of their beliefs since the beginning of time but never have so many Jews been persecuted worldwide as they were in World War II. Anne Frank’s diary reaches a place within all of our hearts because it reminds us how easily the innocents can suffer. Sometimes we may choose to close our eyes or look the other way when unjustifiable things happen in our society and Anne’s tale reminds us that ignorance, in part, claimed her life. Sadly, her story is but one of many of those who died in the Holocaust and as with other Jews, her fate was determined by the country she lived in, her sex and her age.
She overcame the hardships of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century’s most important humanitarians, as well as co-founder of the ACLU. Keller contracted an infection called brain fever. She had lost both her sight and hearing. After college, she set out to learn more about the world and how she could help progress the lives of others. She became well known and a speaker by sharing her experiences with audiences and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. She testified before congress, powerfully supporting to advance welfare of blind people. In 1920, she aided in founding the American Civil Liberties Union. During her notable life, Keller stood as an influential example of how willpower, hard work, and imagination can allow an individual to
Helen Adams Keller was a blind, deaf, mute girl. She has many accomplishments to be proud of. Blind and deaf people idolize her all around the world.
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?"
Heroification is the process where details—both important and trivial—are left out or changed to fit the archetypical mold of the flawless, inhuman "heroes." This "degenerative process" makes "flesh-and-blood individuals into pious, perfect creatures without conflicts, pain, credibility, or human interest (Loewen 19)." For example, many people know of Helen Keller only as the blind, deaf girl who despite her handicaps learned to read, write, and to speak, but this is only the first twenty years of her life. Whatever happened to Keller for the next sixty-four years of her life? Keller was, in fact, a radical socialist in Massachusetts starting in the early 1900s, and was one of the most passionate and famous woman during that time rallying for the new communist nation. Keller's love for socialism did not stem from a vacuum but was rooted deep within her experiences as a disabled person, and she sympathized with other handicaps and learned that social class controls not only people's opportunity but also their disabilities. But during the heroification process, the schools and the mass media omitted Keller's lifelong goal and passion to bring about radical social change because we would rather teach our young to "remain uncontroversial and one-dimensional" than to have a room full of leftists (Loewen 35).
“Helen Keller was dead. But her spirit lives on. As she said so many times, ‘The best and most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.’”(Davidson 91). Keller’s spirit is never dead and will encourage and influence generation after generation. She spent her childhood enjoying and learning the world and showed her great love and passion to the world. She dedicated most of her life to helping people who had the affliction. Her speeches, her actions and her books all reveal her good personality that even though she was blind and deaf; she could feel the world and show her courage, altruism and love to the world. What she encountered is much more painful than other people, but her life was more meaningful than anyone else not only because her capability to read, write and speak without sight and hearing, but more importantly, her optimistic attitudes toward the her miserable fate that she never gave up trying, never afraid of difficulties and always thought about
“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.
Anne Frank was a German-Jewish diarist. She was known for the diary she wrote while hiding from anti-Jewish persecution in Amsterdam during World War II. Her diary describes with wisdom and humor the two difficult years she spent in seclusion before her tragic death at the age of 15. Since it was first published in 1947, her diary has appeared in more than 50 languages. Perhaps more than any other figure, Anne Frank gave a human face to the victims of the Holocaust.
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt with the heart,” claims Helen Keller, a blind and deaf woman since the age of 19 months when she contracted what the doctors of her era called “brain fever”, now known as scarlet fever (www.nndb.com). Throughout her life, she began as a scared child and transformed into a bold, “miracle worker”. Helen Keller transformed the lives of others with her dedication and work, involved herself in political causes and even inspired other deaf-blind children, before she went on to win numerous awards.
Helen Keller is a woman that has done many wonderful things in her lifetime. Many people think she is an amazing person. She has taught people that no matter what is wrong with you, you can do anything you put your mind to. I believe she looked at as one of the most inspirational people in the world.
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.