The Story of My Life

Helen Keller 1903

Introduction

Helen Keller overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of deafness and blindness to become an influential lecturer and social activist. Keller has become, in American culture, an icon of perseverance, respected and honored by readers, historians, and activists. When she was a child, Keller received a letter from a writer that she quoted in her autobiography: "Some day you will write a great story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to many." This statement proved prophetic, as her autobiography The Story of My Life, published in the United States in 1903, is still read today for its ability to motivate and reassure readers. In her time, Keller was a celebrity and the publication of her autobiography was met with enthusiasm. The book was generally well received, and Keller later wrote a follow-up called Midstream, My Later Life in which she tells what happened in the twenty-five years after the publication of The Story of My Life.

Keller began working on The Story of My Life while she was a student at Radcliffe College, and it was first published in installments in Ladies' Home Journal. Helping her was an editor and Harvard professor named John Albert Macy, who later married Keller's first teacher and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan. In the book Keller recounts the first twenty-two years of her life, from the events of the illness in her early childhood that left her blind and deaf through her second year at Radcliffe College. Prominent historical figures wander among the pages of The Story of My Life: She meets Alexander Graham Bell when she is only six and remains friends with him for years; she visits the acclaimed American poet John Greenleaf Whittier; and she exchanges correspondence with people like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Mrs. Grover Cleveland.

Author Biography

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. She suffered a serious illness at the age of nineteen months that left her blind and deaf. While Keller initially devised gestures and actions to make herself understood, she knew that she was not like other children. Still, she learned to perform household chores such as folding laundry and tried to remain as much a part of the family as possible. Over the years, however, her frustration at not being understood made her angry and hostile, and she often erupted into uncontrolled fits.

Keller's parents realized that she needed special teaching but were unsure where to find it. When Keller was six years old, her parents took her to see Alexander Graham Bell, who recommended that they contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind. They did, and Anne Sullivan was sent to teach Keller how to communicate and also to educate her on a wide range of educational subjects.

Keller proved to be an enthusiastic and bright student. Once she had mastered the manual alphabet, Keller learned to read Braille and became a voracious reader. After hearing that a blind and deaf Norwegian girl had been taught to speak, Keller also learned to speak, attending Horace Mann School for the Deaf for instruction. Keller, and her escort Sullivan, also studied at a number of other schools, including Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. In 1904, Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe College. The year before her graduation, Keller published her first autobiography, The Story of My Life.

Keller committed her adult life to social activism. She gave lectures to increase public understanding of the challenges that face people with physical handicaps. Keller helped to improve schooling and general conditions for blind people and deaf people. In addition, she was active in promoting women's, children's, workers', and minorities' rights; and she was also outspoken about ways to prevent blindness in infants. Through it all Sullivan remained by Keller's side, supporting her and making sure she was communicating effectively with her various audiences. Sullivan died in 1936, but with the help of other supporters, Keller was able to continue pursuing social reform.

Many high honors were bestowed upon Keller, including numerous honorary degrees. Her circle of friends and associates included some of the greatest minds of the time, among them were Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and three United States presidents.

Keller died on June 1, 1968, in Westport, Connecticut. The urn containing her ashes is housed in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Through her life and accomplishments, Keller demonstrated that having physical challenges does not preclude a person from living a full life.

Summary

Chapters 1–5

After providing brief descriptions of her home in Alabama and her family members, Keller explains how she became disabled—a fever she had when she was nineteen months old left her blind and deaf—and her first memories of being disabled, recounting her early attempts to communicate. Keller reviews her parents' efforts to find her medical treatment and educational assistance, as well as her early experiences with her first teacher, Anne Sullivan.

Following the illness that left her blind and deaf, Keller got accustomed to the darkness and the silence but retained the memories of the sights and sounds she had enjoyed before her illness. Keller devised a simple system of gestures and tried very hard to make herself understood by her family. She knew when she was being difficult, but she felt she had to resort to fits of temper and frustration because the few signs she used to express herself were inadequate.

Keller's parents were hopeful when they read about Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who had taught a deaf-blind girl named Laura Bridgman. They were also hopeful about a possible eye surgery, but the eye doctor could only refer them to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who knew about schools and teachers for children like Keller. Dr. Bell advised the Kellers to contact the Perkins Institution in Boston. Shortly before Keller's seventh birthday, Anne Sullivan arrived to educate Keller. Sullivan began teaching Keller the manual alphabet, and Keller learned it very quickly. Keller was thrilled to realize that there was a word to describe every object and idea.

Chapters 6–10

Keller chronicles her first several years of educational development, speaking of Sullivan's instructional methods, as well as her responses to Sullivan's demeanor and evolving techniques.

Keller progressed from learning the alphabet to learning words, and then to learning texts by authors such as William Shakespeare. Keller notes that the more she learned, the more questions she had. She began to learn to read when Sullivan placed pieces of paper with raised letters on objects to name them. For example, Sullivan would spell out "dress" in raised letters and pin the word to a dress.

Keller loved learning because Sullivan often took her outdoors. The subject Keller disliked was arithmetic, so she finished her lessons and immediately went to play rather than staying and asking questions as she normally did. Still, Keller did her best to grasp the ideas Sullivan struggled to teach. Keller comments in chapter seven, "It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful."

Sullivan took Keller on a trip to Boston to visit the Perkins Institution. There, Keller befriended a number of the blind children, which delighted her. Sullivan then took her to some historical sites in Boston, teaching history lessons along the way. Arrangements were made for Sullivan and Keller to spend the summer in Cape Cod with a friend. Keller's descriptions of that summer are full of happy memories by the shore.

Chapters 11–15

After returning home from their summer in Cape Cod, Sullivan and Keller joined the rest of the Keller family, who decided to spend the autumn months at their summer cottage, nearby Fern Quarry. While there, the Kellers entertained many visitors and Keller delighted in the wonderful smells of the food prepared for the guests. There was a train in Fern Quarry, and it ran on a long trestle that spanned a gorge. One day, while Keller, Sullivan, and Keller's sister, Mildred, were out walking, they were stuck on the trestle when the train was coming and barely made it across in time.

Keller returned to the north for a winter and was amazed at the icicles, snow, and bare trees. She learned to toboggan and loved the thrill of the ride.

In 1890, Keller learned to speak, urged on by news that a blind-deaf Norwegian girl had learned to speak. In order to learn, Keller and Sullivan went to the Horace Mann School, led by Miss Sarah Fuller. Although it was a very difficult process, Keller practiced often and made remarkable progress.

In the winter of 1892, Keller wrote a story called "The Frost King." Her family was surprised that she was able to write such a good story, and Keller sent it to Mr. Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institution and her good friend. He loved the story and published it in one of his newsletters. When it was discovered that a very similar story had already been published, Mr. Anagnos expressed doubt but was reassured by Keller that the story was original. Although he believed her at first, he was eventually convinced that Keller had deceived him, and the friendship came to an end. When Keller realized that she had inadvertently plagiarized the story—she truly thought she had created it, but she had read the other story before writing her own—she felt deeply regretful. The experience made Keller question every thought she had, wondering if it was really her own or one that she had read and forgotten.

In 1893, Keller visited Niagara Falls, which filled her with wonder by its thundering roar. (Keller could feel the vibrations made by the falls.) That summer, she and Sullivan visited Bell, who accompanied them to the World's Fair. Keller was allowed to touch many of the items in the exhibits, and she was thrilled by having India, Egypt, and Peru come to life for her. In addition, Bell used some of the exhibits to explain scientific principles to Keller.

Chapters 16–20

Keller continued her studies and her speech practice, both on her own and with Sullivan. While visiting friends, Keller met Mr. Irons, a Latin scholar who took Keller on as a student.

In 1894, Keller attended a meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. Arrangements were made for Keller to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, where she studied for two years. Sullivan enjoyed an occasional break, as some of the faculty members were able to communicate directly with Keller using the manual alphabet. Although her progress with lip-reading (which she did with her fingers) and speech disappointed her, she continued to work diligently.

In 1896, Keller enrolled in the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in preparation for her entrance into Radcliffe College. Because the teachers had no experience teaching a student like Keller, Sullivan attended every class, spelling out the lectures into Keller's hands. Keller enjoyed her time at Cambridge because she learned a wide variety of subjects that interested her and also because she had the chance to interact with other girls her age. When one of Keller's instructors believed that she was pushing herself too hard and should slow down, a disagreement arose between the instructor and Sullivan over Keller's ability to take her exams with the rest of her class. As a result, Keller left the school and prepared for her admissions tests for Radcliffe College. Although they were quite difficult given the unusual nature of Keller's needs, she passed.

Keller entered Radcliffe College full of hopes, dreams, and fantasies of what college life would be like. She discovered that college life was less romantic than she had imagined, and the courses more difficult. Still, her love for her subjects helped her maintain her enthusiasm.

Chapters 21–23

Keller describes her lifelong love of books, both for pleasure and for learning, and reviews some of her favorite authors and books. She discusses her love for the outdoors, explaining how she manages certain activities like canoeing and sailing. In the final chapter, she describes some of the "many men of genius" she has known. These men include Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Alexander Graham Bell. She ends her book by praising her wonderfully supportive friends, without whom she could never have achieved all that she did.

Key Figures

Mr. Anagnos

Mr. Anagnos was the director of the Perkins Institution. He sent Anne Sullivan to the Kellers' home. He and Keller became friends, and he had her sit on his knee when she visited the Institution. When Keller wrote "The Frost King," she sent it to him for his birthday, but because Mr. Anagnos came to believe that she intentionally plagiarized it, the friendship was forever ruined.

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell first met Keller when she was six years old and her parents brought her to him for advice on how to teach her. Dr. Bell suggested that they contact the Perkins Institution for the Blind, which they did. Dr. Bell remained a friend to Keller and Anne Sullivan and accompanied them on a trip to the World's Fair.

As a child, Keller sensed Bell's tender disposition, as she notes in chapter three, "Child as I was, I at once felt the tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration." The Story of My Life is dedicated to him.

Bishop Brooks

One of the "many men of genius" Keller knew, Bishop Brooks knew Keller from her childhood. He spoke beautifully to her throughout her life of religion, God, and spiritual matters, and he emphasized no particular religion as much as the importance of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humankind. Keller enjoyed his company because he always gave her something meaningful to ponder.

Margaret T. Canby

Canby was the author of "The Frost Fairies," on which Keller's "The Frost King" was inadvertently based. Canby sent Keller an encouraging letter in which she expressed her belief that some day, Keller would write her own story that would be a comfort to its readers.

Dr. Chisholm

Dr. Chisholm was the oculist (eye doctor) who regretfully told the Kellers he could do nothing for their daughter. He did, however, refer them to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell.

Charles Townsend Copeland

Copeland taught Keller's English composition class at Radcliffe College. She credited him with bringing "freshness" and "power" to literature, a subject she always loved.

Ella

Ella, Helen's childhood nurse, was subject to Helen's terrible fits and spiteful acts.

Miss Sarah Fuller

Fuller was the principal of the Horace Mann School, where Keller learned to speak. Keller writes in chapter thirteen, "This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of March, 1890."

Mr. Gilman

Gilman was the principal at Radcliffe College. He was one of two instructors who learned the manual alphabet so that he could communicate directly with Keller.

Frau Gröte

Gröte was Keller's German teacher at Radcliffe College. She was one of two teachers who learned the manual alphabet and so was able to instruct Keller directly.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

One of the "many men of genius" Keller knew, Holmes once called upon Sullivan and Keller to visit him. Keller smelled leather and ink in the room, so she knew she was surrounded by books. When Holmes shed a tear over a poem, Keller was touched.

Mr. Irons

A friend of a family Anne Sullivan and Keller visited, Irons was a Latin scholar who took Keller on as a student. Keller describes him as "a man of rare, sweet nature and of wide experience." Irons also taught Keller about literature, and from his instruction she learned "to know an author, to recognize his style as I recognize the clasp of a friend's hand."

Mr. Keith

Keith was Keller's mathematics instructor at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. It was not until she took his class that she truly understood the subject. After Keller withdrew from the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Keith continued to teach her mathematics by coming to see her. In chapter nineteen, Keller describes him as "always gentle and forbearing, no matter how dull I might be, and believe me, my stupidity would often have exhausted the patience of Job."

Arthur H. Keller

Helen's father, Arthur Keller had been a captain in the Confederate army. Helen's mother, Kate, was Arthur's second wife, and he was much older than she was. Keller describes him as "loving and indulgent, devoted to his home, seldom leaving us, except in the hunting season." He was a hospitable man who enjoyed bringing guests home to see his garden.

Helen Keller

Helen Keller is the author of the autobiography. In infancy, she fell seriously ill (the exact diagnosis is unknown) and was left blind and deaf. She realized that she was different from the others around her, but she did her best to make herself understood. She had a loving relationship with her sister and often retreated to her mother's warm embrace when she was hurt or angry. After years of difficulty communicating, Keller became extremely willful and hostile and would resort to fitful episodes out of frustration. She notes in chapter three, "I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself." Her parents were no longer able to control or reach her, and they knew she needed special training. After contacting the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, they welcomed a teacher, Anne Sullivan, to their home.

Media Adaptations

• Keller's life is the basis of William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker, which includes many of the events of Keller's life as portrayed in The Story of My Life. The play was successful on the stage and was adapted to film in 1962, produced by Playfilm Productions and starring Anne Bancroft as Sullivan and Patty Duke as Keller. For their performances in the 1962 film version, Bancroft and Duke won Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. In 1970, a film called Helen Keller and Her Teacher was produced by Jerome Kurtz and Jesse Sandler.
• The Miracle Worker has also been filmed for television. In 1979, the film was made starring Patty Duke as Sullivan and Melissa Gilbert as Keller. A newer version was broadcast in 2001, starring Hallie Kate Eisenberg as Keller and Alison Elliott as Sullivan.
• A documentary featuring Keller herself was produced by Nancy Hamilton Presentation in 1956, titled Helen Keller in Her Story. The film won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.

Keller regards Sullivan's arrival as the most important day of her life. Keller was a motivated and intelligent student and relishes her memories of first understanding the letters of the manual alphabet, which allowed her to learn the names of objects and ideas. After she learned to read Braille, she felt the world open up further for her. Next she learned to speak, and eventually went on to attend Radcliffe College (with Sullivan at her side), from which she graduated with honors in 1904.

Recognizing the blessings in her life led Keller to put her education and drive to work on behalf of others like herself. She became a vocal advocate for the physically challenged and made strides in educating the public about the needs of the blind, deaf, and mute. She was tireless in her pursuit of social reforms and extended her efforts to include feminist issues and minorities' rights. For her work, she received various awards and honorary doctorates. In fact, she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Harvard. After Sullivan's death in 1936, Keller continued her efforts with the help of other supporters. Keller died in 1968.

Kate Keller

Helen's mother, Kate Keller was an early source of comfort to the troubled child. After the arrival of Sullivan, Kate Keller learned the manual alphabet so that she could communicate effectively with her daughter. Although she sometimes felt threatened by Sullivan, to whom Helen was so deeply attached, she realized that in order for her daughter to thrive, the deeply bonded student-teacher relationship was necessary.

Mildred Keller

Helen's sister, Mildred Keller accompanied her on nature walks and to gather berries. Mildred was with Sullivan and Keller on the day they sped across the trestle just before the train.

Miss Reamy

Keller's German teacher at the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, Reamy knew the manual alphabet and so was able to teach Keller directly rather than through Sullivan.

John P. Spaulding

Spaulding was a dear friend to Keller, although little is said of their relationship except that she knew him in Boston. She describes his death (in 1896) as "the greatest sorrow that I have ever borne, except the death of my father." She adds, "Only those who knew and loved him best can understand what his friendship meant to me."

Anne Mansfield Sullivan

When Anne Sullivan went to teach Keller in March 1887, she was only twenty years old and a recent graduate of the Perkins Institution for the Blind. When she was very young, she and her brother were sent to an almshouse (a charitable home for the poor, usually providing very bad living conditions at that time) in Massachusetts, where she contracted an eye disease that left her with severely impaired vision. Having overcome her own vision problems, she had the benefit of understanding what it was like not to be able to access the world through all five senses. She knew that discipline would be the first priority if she was to be an effective teacher, and she was as patient in disciplining Keller as she was in tutoring her.

Sullivan used Samuel Gridley Howe's approach to teaching the blind and deaf. This consisted of using the manual alphabet to spell out words in the student's hand. While Howe believed in structured lessons, Sullivan opted for more spontaneous lessons. She was acutely aware of her environment and her student's interests, so she sought opportunities to teach in everyday moments, such as while taking a walk or preparing for a holiday. Sullivan taught Keller the manual alphabet, Braille, and a wide range of educational subjects, and she accompanied her to special schools to learn advanced subjects. When Keller attended Radcliffe College, Sullivan repeated lectures and class discussions using Howe's method.

Throughout Keller's life, Sullivan was dedicated to supporting her efforts in education and in social reform. Sullivan was always with Keller, helping her to communicate to her audience and being a go-between as Keller met new and interesting people. This dedication to her student was uninterrupted even after Sullivan married Keller's editor, John Albert Macy. Sullivan died in 1936.

Martha Washington

The child of the Kellers' cook, Washington was an African-American girl who understood Helen's first, simple signs. Martha and Helen both enjoyed mischief and had fun playing together, although Helen enjoyed being domineering with her friend.

John Greenleaf Whittier

One of the "many men of genius" Keller met, Whittier was an accomplished poet who was impressed with Keller's speaking ability. After discussing poetry with Keller, Whittier praised Sullivan's fine work as a teacher.

Themes

Perseverance

Perhaps the single greatest lesson readers take away from The Story of My Life is the value of perseverance. Without the ability to see or hear, Keller learned to function and interact within society in a meaningful way. Her drive to make a place for herself in the world started when she was very young. Even as a child, she found ways to help her mother around the house, rather than stay in a world that was dark, silent, and lonely. In fact, the terrible fits for which she is so well-known were the product of her extreme frustration at not being able to make herself understood and not having anyone else reach out and communicate with her. Once she overcame her obstacles and learned to communicate, she was driven to accomplish her high goals. She garnered many achievements, but she also gave credit for her accomplishments to her supporters. The concluding paragraph of The Story of My Life recognizes the invaluable contributions her friends made to her extraordinary success.

Once Keller learned to communicate and to read, she was eager to learn to speak. When she heard about a blind-deaf Norwegian girl who had learned to speak, Keller recalls, "Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl's success before I was on fore with eagerness. I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak." Once she started lessons in speech, she worked on it constantly. In chapter thirteen she remembers,

My work was practice, practice, practice. Discouragement and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had accomplished spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my achievement.

At every educational level, Keller was urged on by her desire to excel. When she decided that she would go to college, she wanted to do it just like anyone else, not as a blind-deaf student. In chapter eighteen, she writes, "The thought of going to college took root in my heart and became an earnest desire, which impelled me to enter into a competition for a degree with seeing and hearing girls." She planned to attend college, but she did not want to go to a school for the deaf and blind. This proved to be more difficult than she imagined, but she accepted her struggles as challenges and found satisfaction in meeting them. Because Radcliffe College was not equipped to administer exams to a blind-deaf person, Keller had difficulties while taking her exams. Sullivan was not allowed to assist, so the faculty did the best they could. At the end of chapter nineteen, Keller remarks,

But I do not blame anyone. The administrative board of Radcliffe College did not realize how difficult they were making my examinations, nor did they understand the peculiar difficulties I had to surmount. But if they unintentionally placed obstacles in my way, I have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all.

Education and Knowledge

Keller firmly believed in the power of education, both formal and informal. She found that she was delighted in the process of learning and that there was great value in acquiring knowledge in a variety of areas. In chapter four, after she made the mental connection between water and the letters that spelled it, she

knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. I left the well-house eager to learn.

She continues in chapter five, "the more I handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world." This ability to connect with the world is at the center of Keller's love of knowledge. After learning the meaning of love, for example, she comments in chapter six, "I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others."

Sullivan taught Keller by taking her on trips where she could touch and feel what she was learning. Keller notes in chapter nine, "While we were in Boston we visited Bunker Hill, and there I had my first lesson in history. The story of the brave men who had fought on the spot where I stood excited me greatly." Of visiting Plymouth Rock she adds, "I could touch it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their toils and great deeds seem more real to me." After visiting the World's Fair with Sullivan and Bell, Keller felt that the knowledge she gained had matured her:

All these experiences added a great many new terms to my vocabulary, and in the three weeks I spent at the Fair I took a long leap from the little child's interest in fairy tales and toys to the appreciation of the real and the earnest in the workaday world.

Keller delighted in taking the knowledge she gained from her studies with Sullivan and turning it over in her mind to create new thoughts and ideas. This is why she became more inquisitive as she advanced in her studies. In chapter seven, Keller describes the experience of having Sullivan read Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem "The Chambered Nautilus" to her and then demonstrating the process of building a shell. Keller takes this lesson and adds, "Just as the wonder-working mantle of the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought."

Topics for Further Study

• If you had to choose between losing your sight or your hearing, which one would you choose? Take into account your present interests, future interests, ability to communicate, and society's perceptions of people with these challenges. Compose an essay in which you explain your decision. Add a paragraph explaining what, if any, effect this exercise has on you.
• Find a partner and learn the first five letters of the manual alphabet. Then put on a blindfold and earplugs of some kind and have your partner take you to a room that is unfamiliar to you. How do you feel in this strange environment without the benefit of seeing or hearing? Once you have explored the room a little, sit down with your partner and have him or her spell words in your hand using the letters you have learned (bed, bad, cab, bead, ace, deed, etc.). How many words were you able to understand? After you have done all this, trade roles so that your partner wears the blindfold and earplugs.
• Research Louis Braille to find out why he created his unique system that allows the blind to read. What five adjectives would you use to describe him?
• In The Story of My Life Keller writes, "It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise," and later, "A medallion of Homer hangs on the wall of my study." Read the first chapter of the Iliad. Bear in mind that Homer was blind as you read the passages. Prepare a brief lesson explaining why you think this book was so compelling to Keller. Look for elements, phrases, and features that are perhaps surprising coming from a blind poet and try to account for them.
• Suppose your family has enrolled into a "student exchange" type of program and offered to sponsor a blind and deaf person with Keller's communicative skills for one year. Plan how you will help this student learn the subjects you are currently studying. Think about the education Keller received. Her travels, experiences with things such as the World's Fair, and interactions with remarkable people all helped her learn more than she could have learned from a textbook. What field trips could you plan in your area? Are there any specialized museums or similar exhibits you think would be appropriate? Document your lesson plans, including at least one activity for each of your subjects.

Nature

Throughout her early life, Keller took great pleasure in nature. She felt it, tasted it, and smelled it, and then imagined its sights and sounds. As she pursued her studies, one of her favorite subjects was physical geography because "it was a joy to learn the secrets of nature." Describing the experience of climbing a tree, she comments in chapter five, "I sat there for a long, long time, feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud. After that I spent many happy hours in my tree of paradise, thinking fair thoughts and dreaming bright dreams." Of experiencing an icy winter in the north, Keller remarks, "I recall my surprise on discovering that a mysterious hand had stripped the trees and bushes, leaving only here and there a wrinkled leaf. The birds had flown, and their empty nests in the bare trees were filed with snow." Keller loved to feel that she was interacting with creatures, as when she and Sullivan were walking to an outdoor spot to read. In chapter twenty-one, Keller describes this walk:

As we hastened through the long grass toward the hammock, the grasshoppers swarmed about us and fastened themselves on our clothes, and I remember that my teacher insisted upon picking them all off before we sat down, which seems to me an unnecessary waste of time.

Style

Formal Tone

Although Keller occasionally lapses into emotional passages, her writing style is generally formal. It is reminiscent of the lofty language of Greek writers and also of the similes and tones of biblical text. Toward the end of chapter two, for example, she writes, "Thus it is when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the tender affections that grow out of endearing words and actions and companionship." At times, she makes direct allusions to biblical stories, as in chapter three: "Thus I came out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders." Recalling what it was like when she first learned to speak, Keller comments, "My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and all faith." Keller also uses allegorical images to convey her feelings, as when she refers to the "cup of bitterness" and the "angel of forgetfulness" in chapter thirteen. All of these examples demonstrate Keller's love of figurative language and controlled tone.

Given that Keller was an enthusiastic reader, her writing style may not be so surprising. While most people derive their sense of diction and syntax from interacting with the people around them, Keller was influenced by the writers whose books she read with such vigor. She read the Bible extensively in her youth and took a class at Radcliffe College called "Bible as English Literature" around the time she was writing The Story of My Life. That same semester, she took a class called "The Odes of Horace," which fed her deep love of classicism. In fact, she claimed that the Iliad"made Greece my paradise." These influences clearly play a strong role as Keller begins to develop her own writing style.

Affectionate Recollection

Despite the hardships Keller overcame, there is no sadness, self-pity, or bitterness in The Story of My Life. She willingly tells of her childhood fits and how angry she was at the time, but she relates these episodes with calm recollection. Her focus is on the people she loved and the wonderful experiences she had in the first twenty-two years of her life. She wistfully recalls moments spent in the orchard or up a tree. Remembering her summer at Cape Cod, she writes, "As I recall that visit North I am filled with wonder at the richness and variety of the experiences that cluster about it." She describes the beautiful scent of the outdoors and the tempting smells coming from the kitchen on Christmas. At the very beginning of the book, she comments, "When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy."

Keller is especially affectionate in her descriptions of Sullivan and the patience and creativity she exhibited in Keller's childhood. When Keller attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in preparation for Radcliffe College, two members of the staff learned the manual alphabet in order to communicate directly with Keller. While Keller appreciated this, she missed Sullivan. Keller recalls, "But, though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure." Keller's admiration for Sullivan is clear in the following excerpt from chapter seven:

My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her—there is not a talent or an inspiration or a joy in me that was not awakened by her loving touch.

Historical Context

Role of Women

When Keller wrote The Story of My Life she was not yet active in social reform. Still, her attendance at a college was an impressive feat for any woman at the time, and especially for a woman in Keller's special situation. Her determination to receive an education equal to that offered a man was set early in her life. She recalls in chapter eighteen, "When I was a little girl, I visited Wellesley and surprised my friends by the announcement, 'Someday I shall go to college—but I shall go to Harvard!' When asked why I would not go to Wellesley, I replied that there were only girls there."

Keller was deeply influenced by the intellectual and activist atmosphere of the progressive era in which she lived. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women were still limited in their ability to sign contracts, own land, vote, and work. At the turn of the century, women were demanding to be taken seriously in their pursuit of equal rights. Keller was one of the early feminists pursuing fairness for women.

Compare & Contrast

• Early Twentieth Century: Educational opportunities for the blind and deaf are extremely limited. There are very few schools to teach children with these needs, and in many cases the blind and deaf are sent to mental asylums. Public sentiment toward the blind and deaf is negative and uneducated.

  Today: There are numerous schools across the country specializing in instructing students with these needs, and many children who are blind or deaf learn to function in public schools. Laws require that the handicapped be accommodated and that employers offer equal opportunities to prospective employees, regardless of physical challenges.

• Early Twentieth Century: In 1900, Keller begins her college studies at Radcliffe. Her first-year courses are French, German History, English composition, and English literature.

  Today: While freshman courses vary from college to college, most students take four or five courses per semester. These courses often include American or world history, English literature, a math course, a science course, and a foreign language. In some universities, first-year students study economics, philosophy, psychology, or theology.

• Early Twentieth Century: Women are not encouraged to pursue education because college degrees have little relevance to women's roles as wives and mothers. Generally, when women do pursue higher education, they do so at schools for women.

  Today: Almost all colleges and universities offer enrollment for men and women alike, and strive to maintain a balance in their student bodies.

Perception of the Physically Challenged

In 1903, when Keller published The Story of My Life, the public was indifferent to the needs of people who were physically challenged. Among those who had never dealt with such a challenge, there was usually ignorance and negative stereotyping. There were few specialized schools for instructing students who were blind and/or deaf. Often, deaf and blind people were institutionalized in mental asylums, where they neither belonged nor received any kind of education. After completing her degree, Keller set about informing the public about people like herself in hopes of helping people understand that people with disabilities are not so different from those without them. In fact, Keller's work in this area took her to Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.

Beginning of Civil Rights Advocacy

When Keller was born in 1880, "Jim Crow" laws had just been declared unconstitutional by a Federal Circuit Court. These laws had kept segregation alive in the South, restricting African Americans from entering "white only" establishments, forcing them to drink from "colored only" water fountains, and generally keeping the two races as separate as possible. With the "Jim Crow" laws no longer in place, African Americans began to organize to win additional legal battles that would enable them to enjoy the same rights as other American citizens.

As with women's rights, Keller was one of the early proponents of civil rights. She was appalled that in the United States anyone would be denied their rights based on ethnicity or race. In chapter nine, she describes her childhood admiration for the Pilgrims and early colonists, and she expresses her mixed feelings upon learning more about them. She writes,

I thought they desired the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of their acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we glory in the courage and energy that gave us our 'Country Beautiful.'

She wrote a letter to the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1916, expressing her dismay at the current system and providing a monetary contribution.

Critical Overview

Written when Keller was only twenty-two years old, The Story of My Life reviews the author's early life. Critics were, and continue to be, impressed with the presentation of the story as well as with the inspiring content. Because Keller was a celebrity in her day, the autobiography caught the attention of readers and reviewers, who found the book satisfying and heartening. First published in 1903, the book is still in print. Some school teachers use the book as a way to teach perseverance and the importance of education, and instill a deeper appreciation of and compassion for the physically challenged.

Critics praise The Story of My Life as a book with a message. Keller showing that obstacles can be overcome, whether they are physical or social, continues to resonate with readers. In a review for Booklist, Nancy McCray praised a sound recording of the autobiography because "the tenacity of the deaf and blind woman is revealed." Critics such as Diane Schuur of Time further noted that Keller, in general, is a writer who speaks the "language of the sighted." Schuur added, "She proved how language could liberate the blind and the deaf.… With language, Keller, who could not hear and could not see, proved she could communicate in the world of sight and sound—and was able to speak to it and live in it."

While Keller's contemporaries almost unanimously praised the book, some of them raised concerns about the validity of the authorship. They believed that perhaps Sullivan and Macy actually wrote the book instead of Keller. Those who knew Keller personally found such doubts ridiculous because Keller was such an eloquent speaker and writer and was perfectly capable of expressing her thoughts and opinions. No evidence was ever offered that proved that Keller did not write her autobiography.

A negative criticism of the book is directed at Keller's life rather than at the literary merits of the autobiography—that Sullivan sacrificed her entire life for the sake of her student strikes some reviewers as unhealthy. Walter Kendrick of the New York Times Book Review cited an anonymous review of the autobiography: "The wonderful feat of drawing Helen Keller out of her hopeless darkness was only accomplished by sacrificing for it another woman's whole life." Scholars familiar with Sullivan's life story note that her marriage to John Albert Macy eventually ended because Keller was too much a part of their lives.

Criticism

Jennifer Bussey

Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, she examines Helen Keller's rather surprising use of sense references and imagery throughout The Story of My Life .

Helen Keller is regarded as a heroic figure who overcame extreme hardship to accomplish impressive goals, both personally and publicly. At the age of nineteen months, she fell ill with a fever that left her blind and deaf. Despite her early plunge into silence and darkness, Keller was able to learn to read and speak as a result of her personal persistence and the hard work of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Even as a child, Keller craved communication with the world and longed to feel connected to others. She then took her ability to communicate and pursued a career as a lecturer and writer, tirelessly advocating social reform for the physically challenged, women, and minorities. What is so surprising about her eloquent words is her frequent references to sight and sound. In The Story of My Life she recounts her experiences, often with sensory descriptions that do not seem possible given her complete reliance on smell, taste, and, most importantly, touch. This essay will review some of these descriptions and then offer several possible explanations for Keller's ability to write such vibrant passages.

Keller felt a deep bond with nature and turned to it as a source of comfort and learning. In her autobiography, she frequently writes about nature, and this is the subject matter for some of her most moving sensory images. Her ability to describe nature this way appears as early as the first chapter, in which she explains that beside the house where she lived when she was very young was a servant's house that was covered in vines. She remarks, "From the garden it looked like an arbor. The little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and Southern smilax. It was the favorite haunt of hummingbirds and bees." Although this memory predates her loss of sight and hearing, it seems amazing that a young child would perceive and remember the sight of the servant's house in such detail.

Interestingly, the next paragraph offers an extended description of her house as she remembers it after her illness but before Anne Sullivan arrived. This passage is almost exclusively related in terms of touch and smell. She writes,

Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell, would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass.

She adds that the roses filled "the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they felt so soft, so pure."

By the events of chapter five, Keller had begun studying with Sullivan, and she offers this description of a mimosa tree: "Yes, there it was, all quivering in the warm sunshine, its blossom-laden branches almost touching the long grass. Was there ever anything so exquisitely beautiful in the world before!"

These three passages offer an important insight. The first two provide descriptions of houses as Keller remembers them before she began to study with Sullivan, but because the first one is a memory from before her illness, she consciously uses sight words. In the second passage, she intentionally mentions that this is a memory from before Sullivan arrived, and the descriptions center on touch and smell. In the third passage, she offers a very visual description of a tree and marvels at its physical beauty. In Keller's mind, it seems, there was a measurable span of time between the onset of her blindness and deafness, and the time Sullivan opened the world back up for her. During that period, her sensory abilities were noticeably limited, but before and after, she seems to have functioned with all five senses intact.

The need to communicate with others was the driving force behind Keller's determination to understand language. In an early memory, before she began studying with Sullivan, she recalls loving Christmas, not for the gifts, but for the holiday preparations and the wonderful smells in the house. She took pleasure in being treated to "tidbits" from the kitchen and in being allowed to participate in the festivities. In this example, she unites the memory of the smells and the tastes of Christmas with being a part of the family's holiday cheer. Later, after having studied a variety of subjects with Sullivan, she recalls being invited by the town schoolchildren to their Christmas party. She describes the tree in chapter eight: "In the center of the schoolroom stood a beautiful tree ablaze and shimmering in the soft light, its branches loaded with strange, wonderful fruit. It was a moment of supreme happiness." Again, her early memory centers on her limited sensory abilities, while the later memory is related as if her eyesight were returned. In both passages, however, her delight comes not from the smells, tastes, and sights themselves, but from the experience of being included in important events of the world with which she longed to connect. Her dazzling description of the Christmas tree in the second passage could be the result of her imagination, her understanding of what Christmas trees looked like, or of hearing others describe the tree. In any case, it was an intense experience that she felt could best be described by calling on visual imagery.

What Do I Read Next?

• Dorothy Hermann's acclaimed biography, Helen Keller: A Life (1998), complements The Story of My Life in its thorough and objective portrayals of Keller and Sullivan. Hermann depicts Helen as she was in private as well as in public, and she explores the complicated relationship between the student and her teacher.
• Keller's autobiographical follow-up to The Story of My Life is Midstream, My Later Life (1929, 1968). Here, Keller tells about the twenty-five years after she graduated from Radcliffe College, including the people she met and her extensive work for social reform.
• In Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy (1997), Joseph P. Lash reviews the events of Anne Sullivan's life prior to and after meeting Helen Keller, along with the background of Keller herself. He shows how these two extraordinary lives joined to make great things happen.
• Margaret Marshall Saunders was a contemporary of Keller who wrote on behalf of child and animal welfare. Her best-known book, Beautiful Joe: The Autobiography of a Dog (1893), is about a mistreated dog that finds a loving home.

In certain cases, Keller's descriptions seem to come from her imagining sights based on a variety of other sources of information. In chapter twelve, for example, she has her first experience with a true winter, complete with snow and icicles. She recalls,

The trees stood motionless and white like figures in a marble frieze. There was no odor of pine needles. The rays of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like diamonds and dropped showers when we touched them. So dazzling was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my eyes.

In this passage, the reader can understand how Keller has comprehended such a breathtakingly visual scene. She would know that the trees were motionless because she would feel complete stillness in the air. She likens the trees to a marble frieze, which is a three-dimensional mural, a form of art accessible by touch. In fact, based on what she tells the reader about her education, there is a very good chance she would have felt a frieze before. Her use of the word "frieze" is fitting, as it is a homophone for the word "freeze." Keller was an avid reader who was skilled at literature and composition, so there is good reason to believe she intentionally used this word.

Next, she mentions that there is no odor of pine needles, which would have given her the impression that she was not in lush surroundings. She would have felt the "rays of the sun" and she says she felt the melting snow falling from twigs when she touched them. By this time, Keller was far enough along in her education to understand the concept of melting ice, so she understood what was happening in the trees. In addition, she mentions "we," meaning that someone else (probably Sullivan) was there, which could account for the beautiful imagery of the twigs sparkling like diamonds and the dazzlingly white light. In her book, Keller never mentions whether she had any visual ability at all. Some people who are legally blind are still able to see to a very limited degree. If Keller had any vision at all, she most certainly would have been able to detect the brightness of light reflecting off a snowy expanse. By evaluating this passage in depth, the reader understands how, in some cases, Keller was able to provide such beautiful visual descriptions of scenes she could not possibly have seen.

There are a number of ways to explain Keller's ability to smoothly incorporate sight and sound imagery in her story. Perhaps her other senses are so honed that she is able to piece together the information she would normally receive from her eyes and ears. Perhaps the early examples are the product of her memory, which had only nineteen months to store visual information, so these memories did not fade. Perhaps, in retrospect, Keller superimposes descriptions she has learned from reading and interacting with people over the years. After all, Sullivan was her constant companion, spelling out everything into Keller's curious hands. The answer probably lies somewhere at the crossroads of all of these factors.

Keller's frequent sensory images bring her autobiography to life in such a way that many readers may not even notice that the blind-deaf author is using surprising descriptions. Because readers are so accustomed to this type of language, the book reads the same as any other life story. By reading the text with a heightened awareness of the author's unique situation, however, the reader gains an even greater appreciation for her sophisticated communicative abilities.

Source:

Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on The Story of My Life, in Nonfiction Classics for Students, The Gale Group, 2001.

Beth Kattelman

Kattelman is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about the arts. In this essay, she considers the poetic elements present in Keller's autobiography.

Keller's frequent sensory images bring her autobiography to life in such a way that many readers may not even notice that the blind-deaf author is using surprising descriptions."

In The Story of My Life Helen Keller recounts her early experiences of being awakened to a world of words and concepts through the brilliant teaching methods of her tutor and constant companion, Anne Sullivan. She carefully retraces the moments when she first connected a word with the physical object it represents (water) and continues on to describe how she gradually built up a vocabulary and an understanding of not only a physical world, but also a world of intangible concepts, ideas, images and emotions. Keller connected to the world through the words that were spelled into her hand, and it was these words that sparked an understanding of human existence. By realizing that words could be put together to evoke mental images, Keller suddenly began to grasp concepts and ideas of things that she could not physically smell or touch. She began to understand and explore how words could be used to represent emotions and how experiences could be described through simile and metaphor. Keller began to understand the poetry of the world. Thus, it is not surprising that Keller's autobiography is much more than a traditional linear narrative of a life story. It is also a poetic work.

In The Story of My Life, Keller does much more than recount the chronological events of her life. Through her use of poetic language, she also gives the reader a rich sense of her unique experience of the world. The language Keller uses is as important to the story as the events that took place. Due to her poetic, descriptive writing, Keller is able to really share her world, and the reader is able to experience what it might be like to live as someone who is bereft of both sight and sound.

There are several examples of this rich poetic description throughout The Story of My Life. One early example is found in a passage in which Keller, with the use of a metaphor, describes her life before her education began:

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line and you waited with beating heart for something to happen?

Here the use of metaphor creates a strong picture of the anticipation and isolation Keller felt. It is much more effective than a straightforward description might have been. By comparing her experience to being lost at sea Keller creates a rich visual image for the reader. The metaphor helps one to connect with the experience emotionally, something a factual, objective retelling would not do.

Another early example of Keller's use of metaphor and poetic imagery occurs as she describes the roses that surrounded her childhood home:

Never have I found in the greenhouses of the North such heart-satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my southern home. They used to hang in long festoons from our porch, filling the whole air with fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they felt so soft, so pure, I could not help wondering if they did not resemble the asphodels of God's garden.

Here Keller uses the senses of smell and touch as a springboard to convey not only the physical impression of these roses, but also the awe and inspiration they invoked in her. Even though she does not actually tell the reader what the roses look like, it is possible to "see" them due to Keller's evocative, poetic use of language.

A poet takes individual words and combines them to create associations that convey much more than the actual words themselves. This is what Keller does. One particularly striking passage occurs in chapter twenty of The Story of My Life as Keller speaks of her struggle to gain knowledge. In this passage Keller again uses metaphor to enhance her description:

Everyone who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.

The passage evokes much more than a generic desire to know. It provides real insight into the personality of Keller. This metaphor of her climbing up the "Hill Difficulty" gives the reader a rich experience of Keller's inner struggles and of her persistence in the face of adversity.

Keller is not only able to convey what happened to her as a child, but through her brilliant use of language she also gives the reader a sense of how it happened."

It is not surprising that Helen Keller developed a strong poetic style in her writing. She was imitating what she had been taught. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan believed in the power of words and emphasized them in every phase of Helen's teaching. Sullivan realized that words could provide the keys that could open doors for Helen. In one of the letters printed in the supplementary material to The Story of My Life, Anne Sullivan relates how she came upon the realization of the importance of vocabulary to a child's learning process. One day when she was in the garden observing Keller's fifteen-monthold cousin, Sullivan experienced a revelation:

I asked myself, 'How does a normal child learn language?' The answer was simple, 'By imitation.' The child comes into the world with the ability to learn, and he learns of himself, provided he is supplied with sufficient outward stimulus. He sees people do things, and he tries to do them. He hears others speak, and he tried (sic) to speak. But long before he utters his first word he understands what is said to him.… These observations have given me a clue to the method to be followed in teaching Helen language. I shall talk into her hand as we talk into the baby's ears. I shall assume that she has the normal child's capacity of assimilation and imitation. I shall use complete sentences in talking to her, and fill out the meaning with gestures and her descriptive signs when necessity requires it; but I shall not try to keep her mind fixed on any one thing. I shall do all I can to interest and stimulate it, and wait for results.

From then on, Sullivan immersed Keller in a world of words. She would constantly spell into the young girl's hand, and Keller's vocabulary quickly grew. Keller had a keen memory and was able to retain many of the words Sullivan passed along. Sullivan also introduced Keller to the works of many of the great poets including Shakespeare, Homer and Wordsworth. She would not only use poetry as a subject to be studied in and of itself, but would use it to emphasize lessons in Keller's other areas of study. As Keller notes, "Everything Miss Sullivan taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem." With so much early exposure to poetry, it is not surprising that Keller developed a poetic style in her own writing. A child learns by imitation, and so, when Keller began to write, she imitated the beautiful language that had been used to teach her.

People frequently have wondered how Keller could have any notion of things that she could not see or hear. As Ralph Barton Perry explains in the introduction to The Story of My Life, there are many different ways to experience the world and the absence of one or two senses does not close off a person's ability to know the things around them,

In practice we deal not with sensory signals themselves but with the things they signalize; and these can be the same whether signalized by visual and auditory data or, as with Miss Keller, by motor, tactile, vibratory, and olfactory data.

In other words, Helen Keller used the senses she did have to fill in the gaps for those she lacked. Keller even created color in her world by associating tactile sensations and the emotions each color might produce. In Midstream, My Later Life, her second autobiography, she describes this process:

I put more thought and feeling into my senses; I examined as I had not before my impressions arising from touch and smell, and was amazed at the ideas with which they supplied me, and the clues they gave me to the world of sight and hearing. For example, I observed the kinds and degrees of fragrance which gave me pleasure, and that enabled me to imagine how the seeing eye is charmed by different colours and their shades.

There have been numerous books written about what makes a written piece a poem. Often the form and structure are the main focus. However, in Fooling With Words poet Coleman Barks tells Bill Moyers that he believes writing does not have to conform to a particular structure in order to be considered a poem: "I don't want to get too solemn about the terms form and poem. If [a piece] has soundwork going on and if it resonates in your body, I'd say it's close to poetry." Here Burke notes that what turns writing into poetry is the physical or emotional sensation it evokes. If one accepts Burke's definition, then The Story of My Life can definitely be considered poetry because in it Keller evokes many sensations with her words. Even though the passages do not contain standard meter and the words do not rhyme, they are poetry just the same. Keller's writing in The Story of My Life speaks to the senses, not to the intellect.

Reading The Story of My Life as poetry opens up a new understanding of Keller's world and of the unlimited possibility of the mind. Although unable to hear or see, Keller, very giftedly, associated with life's sights and sounds, as well as its textures, tastes, and smells. She was also very gifted in her ability to use language that allows readers to live in her world for a brief time and experience the word-images that played across her mind. Readers are fortunate that she was able to share these gifts with the world. While the story of Keller's early days would be worthwhile reading no matter what the writing style, Keller provides the reader an added pleasure. Keller is not only able to convey what happened to her as a child, but through her brilliant use of language she also gives the reader a sense of how it happened. The Story of My Life is a beautiful example of poetic writing that also happens to outline the life of a courageous and creative wordsmith.

Source:

Beth Kattelman, Critical Essay on The Story of My Life, in Nonfiction Classics for Students, The Gale Group, 2001.

Karen D. Thompson

Thompson is a freelance writer who writes primarily in the education field. In this essay, she heralds Keller's autobiography as a work that isexemplary on three counts: its fascinating subject, its beautiful prose, and its thought-provoking nature.

A book is a strange object. It is inanimate, of course, but not permanently so. Anyone who reads with passion knows that the moment a book is read, it ceases to be an inanimate "thing" and becomes instead an animated source of fascination, pleasure, and/or knowledge. Had Dr. Frankenstein not been so insanely obsessed with bringing the human form back to life, he might have satisfied his creative and procreative urges by reading books.

The paradox is that the book cannot come alive until it is read, so it has no ability of its own to entice a reader to open it. Someone must speak for a book. Publishing companies spend millions upon millions to advertise books, to design appealing covers and artwork, and to acquire celebrity endorsements. However, most books that arouse passion do not reach readers as the result of advertising campaigns. Most of them come to the attention in one of two ways: an acquaintance suggests a book either directly or indirectly, or the book is assigned for an educational purpose. Upon reading, some of these books become favorites because of their story, their style, or their ability to stimulate the mind. The Story of My Life hits all three of these marks. It is fascinating in its subject, beautiful in its writing, and thought-provoking in its nature.

Helen Keller was a woman whom adjectives fail to describe. Extraordinary, remarkable, and even brilliant are inadequate. Was she extraordinary? Certainly. Without question she was the most educated deaf and blind woman of her time. Remarkable? Schools continue to offer Helen Keller's life story to students through pages and plays, and television and movie producers continue to offer updated versions of her life. She counted among her intimate friends Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale, several famous actors and actresses, and church notables. Most of them proclaimed themselves to be admirers of hers.

Was Helen Keller brilliant? A consideration of her accomplishments seems to prove so. Before the onset of her illness, she demonstrated signs of being exceptional. At six months she mimicked short, functional sentences such as "How d'ye?" She could speak several words, including "tea" and "water" quite plainly. After her illness, Keller could no longer see or hear. Many of the words she had previously spoken became lost or distorted through lack of hearing them. After five years of existing in a womblike world of silence and darkness, Keller was reintroduced to language thanks to her gifted teacher, Anne Sullivan. Concerning that moment of recognition when words were returned to her, Keller wrote, "I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten-a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me." From that moment on she demanded the word for every object in her world.

Keller soon began the complex task of learning the meanings of abstract words and idioms, learning to use words in sentences, and ultimately, learning to participate in conversation. These tasks present extreme difficulty for deaf children because, as Keller explains:

The deaf child does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse. The little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and imitation. The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his own thoughts. This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf child.

In spite of extreme difficulty, Keller mastered each of these tasks. Early in her education, Keller communicated exclusively through the manual alphabet, but she was not satisfied. She wanted to speak, and so she began the work of acquiring speech. Miss Sarah Fuller, Keller's speech teacher, would pass her pupil's fingers lightly over her own face so that Helen could feel the position of her tongue and lips as she made a sound. Additionally, Keller would feel a speaker's throat for the particular vibration of a sound and discern the expression of the face through touch. Over the course of many years, she learned to speak well enough that those outside her immediate circle could understand her. She also learned correct pronunciations and how to phrase and inflect from reading aloud to Miss Sullivan. Eventually, she learned to speak not only English, but also French, Latin, and German.

One final example of Helen Keller's rare intellect comes from her college-preparatory years. While preparing for Radcliffe, she studied English literature and composition, Greek and Roman history, German, Latin, and arithmetic. Often the texts Keller needed had not yet been embossed, so she had to "carry in her mind" the information that other students could see upon the chalkboard or on the pages. She crafted geometric designs in wire upon a cushion, and had to memorize the lettering of the figures and all other important information.

Her attainments through formal education alone do not cover the scope of Helen Keller's brilliance. She enjoyed physically and mentally taxing activities such as riding her tandem bicycle, rowing either alone or accompanied, and playing chess and checkers. The only concessions made to her in games of chess and checkers were that game pieces were constructed so that she could differentiate between colors by feel. Somehow she managed to "see" the arrangement of the board by passing her hands lightly over the pieces.

Her awesome intelligence was complemented by her finely tuned sense of humor. She had the enviable gift of being able to laugh with others, even when she was the butt of the joke. She loved young children, who loved her in turn, and they often dissolved into giggles at her "blunders." When Helen Keller was young she had a doll named Nancy that was made of towels. Keller wrote that Nancy was "covered with dirt—the remains of mud pies I had compelled her to eat, although she had never shown any special liking for them." Keller's account of the agony students go through when taking exams should be required reading for every student about to submit himself or herself to an academic test. Her description of test anxiety will induce laughter and reduce tension. Her proclamation that "the divine right of professors to ask questions without the consent of the questioned should be abolished" will inspire schemes designed to bring about just such an abolition.

Those unimpressed or uninspired by the accomplishments chronicled in this work can still find much to admire. The writing is flawlessly beautiful. To a large extent, the prose imitates great classical works. Rhythms, imagery, and allusions from the Bible flow throughout. During the first springtime that Keller spent with Miss Sullivan, she learned about the beauties of nature. She described the lesson this way: "I learned how the sun and the rain make to grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, how birds build their nests and live and thrive from land to land, how the squirrel, the deer, the lion and every other creature finds food and shelter." This passage sounds much like the creation story in Genesis. In other places, Keller used allusions to the Bible to bring alive her analogies. About the arrival of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, into her life, Helen Keller said, "Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said, 'Knowledge is love and light and vision."'

Keller's account of the agony students go through when taking exams should be required reading for every student about to submit himself or herself to an academic test."

It is not difficult to believe that Helen Keller wrote easily and beautifully in the style of the classics that she devoured as a child. It is, however, difficult to accept that her descriptions of the beauty around her were her own and not the borrowed imagery of poets or sighted friends. In her autobiography, she described a lily this way:

The slender, fingerlike leaves on the outside opened slowly, reluctant, I thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid; once having made a start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in order and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more beautiful than the rest, which pushed her outer covering back with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky robes knew that she was the lily-queen by right divine, while her timid sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until the whole plant was one nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance.

How could Helen Keller, blind from the age of one, have written so descriptively? If one can move beyond initial incredulity and consider the circumstances, one can understand how Keller's powers of description developed so superbly. Sometimes sighted writers become lazy and employ trite or vague similes. The explanation for this is that writers often rely on their sighted readers to have prior knowledge of what is being described and to fill in the blanks. For example, a writer might describe a rotund, white-haired, bewhiskered man as looking like Santa Claus, or a calm lake as looking like polished glass. The writer expects the reader to know what Santa Clause and polished glass look like and apply that knowledge to the current circumstance. Understandably, Helen Keller never slipped into this trap of lazy writing. She received many of her descriptions from people who knew they were describing a scene to someone who had never viewed the scene or another like it, and they described the scene accordingly. Thus, when Helen Keller related scenes at a later time, she relayed full information, never taking for granted that her readers had seen the same sight for themselves. This explains the beauty of her description of the lily. Perhaps someone once described for Keller the sight of young maidens doffing their hoods shyly or regal young women of social standing parading proudly as with divine right, but it was Helen Keller that juxtaposed the descriptions onto the lily, and the result is an example of description from which poets could learn.

Adding to Keller's amazing gift for description is that she often took in information through senses other than sight, the sense that so many sighted persons rely on almost exclusively in description. Keller's descriptions are full of the feel, smell, and taste of things. In her description of the blooming lily, she talks of the "slender, fingerlike leaves." This is not a brilliant description, but many writers would leave their description at this and congratulate themselves. Keller continues with bold action words, "pushed" and "doffed" and "nodding" and texture words like "soft" and "silky," descriptions that she literally felt from the blooming plant. The lily is not just beautiful, but fragrant, a fact many writers might forget to mention though it is of chief importance in describing a flower.

This partial autobiography—it was written when Helen Keller was in her early twenties—not only fascinates and entertains, it also educates. It educates in the manner of Socrates by causing the reader to consider question upon question. Consider some of these: Helen Keller clearly possessed an innate genius, and despite her physical disabilities, her genius was allowed to grow because it was nurtured by great teachers and supported by financial and social privilege. How many people have lived and died in poverty and isolation whose genius might have cured diseases, ended hunger, or engineered world peace? Helen Keller did not begin any type of formal schooling until she was seven. She progressed at phenomenal speed, full of natural curiosity and a desire to learn. Is formal education pressed upon children too early in the United States? Helen Keller overcame the most serious disabilities a student can overcome. Her workload was grueling, her spirit inexhaustible. She regularly spent many times the hours on assignments that her classmates did. Does this suggest anything about the way special education programs modify expectations for students with disabilities? Clearly, Helen Keller's greatest teacher was Anne Sullivan. Following behind Miss Sullivan in terms of effectiveness were the teachers who voluntarily provided Keller with extra, individual tutoring. This suggests something about current educational standards. Experts know that low student-to-teacher ratios work best; should communities continue to accept growing class sizes and fewer qualified teachers? And a final question, one that addresses the very core of education and knowledge acquisition: Is there thought without words? Helen Keller made the following remark about a sensation she felt when she had just begun to work with Anne Sullivan, before she had associated the manual alphabet with words or words with objects: "This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure." Later, when she understood that words described the concrete and abstract world, she said, "Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought." Consider this question in light of human tribes that have no word for "war." Do they have no word for war because they have never fought one? Or have they never fought a war because the abstract thought has no word to call it into reality?

These questions will not go unanswered. Many different people will answer them many times in many different ways. That is unimportant. What is important is that the world is graced with people whose lives and words raise the important questions. Helen Keller was one such person. She taught those who treat themselves to this story how courage, desire, perseverance, and love know no boundaries. She did this by sharing not merely one of the elements that makes a great book, but three: She told a singularly inspiring and fascinating story, she wrote her story in beautiful prose, and she gave rise to a host of relevant thoughts and questions.

Source:

Karen D. Thompson, Critical Essay on The Story of My Life, in Nonfiction Classics for Students, The Gale Group, 2001.

Sources

Brown, Ray B., ed., Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Gale, 1990.

Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 8: 1966-1970, American Council of Learned Societies, 1988.

Kendrick, Walter, "Her Hands Were a Bridge to the World," in New York Times Book Review, August 30, 1998.

McCray, Nancy, Review in Booklist, Vol. 90, No. 18, May 15, 1994, p. 1702.

Moyers, Bill, Fooling With Words, HarperPerrenial, 2000.

"Nonethnic Rights," in Civil Rights in America: 1500 to the Present, The Gale Group, 1998.

Schuur, Diane, "The Miracle: Helen Keller," in Time, Vol. 153, No. 23, p. 163.

Wolfe, Kathi, "Ordinary People: Why the Disabled Aren't So Different," in Humanist, Vol. 56, No. 6, November—December 1996, pp. 31-35.

Further Reading

Einhorn, Lois J., Helen Keller, Public Speaker: Sightless but Seen, Deaf but Heard, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Einhorn provides an in-depth study of Keller's career as a lecturer and public speaker. The author examines Keller's ability to communicate, while offering analysis and texts of Keller's wide-ranging speeches.

Gitter, Elisabeth, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2001.

Gitter's book tells the compelling story of Dr. Howe, the man who devised the system of communicating to the deaf-blind by using the manual alphabet in their hands. His original student, Laura Bridgman, was a great inspiration to Helen Keller.

Hickok, Lorena A., Touch of Magic: The Story of Helen Keller's Great Teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, Dodd, 1961.

For students interested in how Sullivan came to be the kind of person and teacher she was, this biography provides her background.

Steinem, Gloria, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Holt, 1983.

In this book Steinem, arguably the foremost feminist of modern times, provides an overview of the views that made her so prominent in the women's movement. The topics are sometimes public and sometimes personal, ranging from politics to Marilyn Monroe.