In the play, the Miracle Worker, written by William Gibson, is about Helen Keller in her childhood years. As the story takes place in the 1880s in Tuscumbia, Alabama, when Helen was a baby, her parents Keller and Kate are relieved to hear that Helen was in good condition, after her illness. However, the couple realize that their child is blind and deaf a few years later. As Helen grows up, her family and the servants of the house start treating her as a pet instead of a child. Helen is not disciplined and throws tantrums whenever she doesn’t get what she wants. Keller and Kate have gone to as many doctors as they can and found no solution to Helen’s case. Due to this, Keller starts to believe there is no cure for Helen and sending her to anymore doctors would be pointless. Eventually, a …show more content…
He has such pride and high expectations for his daughter. Also, his love for his wife is strong as well. “Nonsense, the child’s a Keller she has the constitution of a goat. She’ll outlive us all.”(Gibson, page:1) When Kate realizes that Helen is both blind and deaf, Keller becomes very concerned about Helen. He rushes out to Kate, who screams about her realization, and starts screaming Helen’s …show more content…
Before, Keller finds that Annie isn’t even teaching Helen. However, when Annie tales Helen for two weeks, he finally sees that Helen is smart and all the progress she made. “It’s more than all of us could…Taken a wild thing, and given us back a child.” Keller even misses Helen during those two weeks. After seeing Kate desperate to see her child, he now sees the impact of what Helen has created in their lives, He now understands that Helen is not just a handicapped child, but a smart and clever girl. Keller finally sees that Helen no longer needs the Keller’s pity and over-obsessive
For those who are not familiar with the story of Helen Keller or the play 'The Miracle Worker', it recalls the life of a girl born in 1880 who falls tragically ill at the young age of two years old, consequently losing her ability to hear, speak, and see. Helen's frustration grew along side with her age; the older she got the more it became apparent to her parents that she was living in more of an invisible box, than the real world. Her imparities trapped her in life that seemed unlivable. Unable to subject themselves to the torment which enveloped them; watching, hearing and feeling the angst which Helen projected by throwing plates and screaming was enough for them to regret being blessed with their own senses. The Kellers, in hopes of a solution, hired Anne Sullivan, an educated blind woman, experienced in the field of educating sensory disabilities arrived at the Alabama home of the Kellers in 1887. There she worked with Helen for only a little over a month attempting to teach her to spell and understand the meaning of words v. the feeling of objects before she guided Helen to the water pump and a miracle unfolded. Helen understood the juxtaposition of the touch of water and the actual word 'water' Anne spelled out on her hand . Helen suddenly began to formulate the word 'wa...
Helen comes from a very low class family and community. Helen’s family is known as what is called “the ghetto”, although they may not have riches they have a great heart that unites them happily. Helen depended so much on a believed love who failed her. Helen never really came far on her education due to having everything with Charles. Charles lost interest on Helen, but she was blindfolded to see that her happiness didn’t exist. Charles has had an affair during their matrimony with a light complected woman who is mother of his two children. The woman had more power over Helen’s feelings because Charles realized his children needed him. Charles left Helen without much to do, kicking her out o...
The misfortunes Jane was given early in life didn’t alter her passionate thinking. As a child she ...
“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.
“Picking up the pieces of their shattered lives was very, very difficult, but most survivors found a way to begin again.” Once again, Helen was faced with the struggle of living life day-to-day, trying not to continue feeling the pain of her past.
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 ...
Although Jane respects Helen’s honesty and stoicism, she cannot. understand her beliefs and the way in which she accepts her constant chastisement so submissively; she herself ‘should wish the earth to. open and swallow me up.’ After talking to Helen, Jane comments that. her feelings were ‘better regulated’ and ‘thoughts more harmonious’. Finally, Mrs. Temple finds someone whom she can respect.
Kate’s blindness of how her own punishments give a negative impact on how Helen treats other people. In addition, Kate’s endless love and pity for Helen makes Annie so angry, that the only thing she pities is “that the sun won’t rise and set for her all her life, and the only thing you're telling her is it will”(664). Kate’s love for Helen gets in the way of Annie’s teachings. Annie has asked numerous times for Kate to keep her distance from Helen but, she is too blind to accept the fact that Helen will learn better without her being a part of it. Kate’s love and disciplinary actions towards Helen interfere with Annie and her teaching making them a few of her blindnesses within the keller
Helen’s early life was very much shaped by her loss and abandonment. The greatest loss Helen experienced was the death of her parents. As she was orphaned by the age of six, it left her with great grief, darkened childhood memories and bewilderment of where she truly belonged. She eventually found her position as a labourer in her uncle’s house. After working on her uncle’s farm for two years and being denied an opportunity for education, she faced the most significant abandonment in her life: being turned
Fast forward to 4 years later, Helen is now 6 years old and wilder than ever sharing a roof with her parents, her negro servants, and James (her brother). Not knowing what obedience is Helen would make a wreck in the house on a day to day basis. Meanwhile, her parents look all over the country for someone who can help or even cure Helen, but having no luck, not even with Alexander Graham Bell. The couple were ready to give up and send Helen to a mental asylum, but in their last chance of
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 ...
In Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, she draws the reader in by admitting her fears strongly saying, “ I have, as it were, a superstitions hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mi...
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.
When Jane is shunned by Mr. Brocklehurst in front of the entire Lowood population, Helen is the one person that does not immediately judge Jane. In fact, she makes her feel more comfortable in a place that is filled with punishment and hypocrisy. Though Lowood does not truly feel like home, Helen is able to provide Jane with not only all the compassion she needs as well as support and respect. This is one of the first loves Jane experiences on her journey and it allows her to become more open to the love she finds in her future endeavors.
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.