STORY OF MY LIFE
HELEN KELLER
QUESTIONS ON THEME AND PLOT (200-250 Words)
1. Evaluate Helen Keller’s ‘The Story of My Life’ as an autobiography, describing the struggles and achievements of her life.
Helen Keller’s famous autobiography ‘The Story of My Life’ explores the challenges she faced as a deaf and dumb child and her struggles of communicating with the world. The autobiography was dedicated to Alexander Graham Bell. He had taken a personal interest in Helen’s blindness and deafness. Helen Keller also shows her gratitude to her wonderful teacher Miss Sullivan. Helen Keller was born on a plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880 to Captain Keller. She contracted an illness which left her deaf and blind. By the age of seven, Helen had over sixty home signs to communicate with her family. In 1886, Helen Keller’s mother sent her to Dr. Chisolm and Graham Bell. Bell advised her parents to contact Perkins Institute for the Blind. The advent of Miss Sullivan was the most important event in her life. Anne Sullivan arrived in Keller’s house in March, 1887. She immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand. Gradually, she learnt from Miss Sullivan the names of all the familiar objects in her world. The autobiography describes graphically Helen’s herculean efforts to get an education. She entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance to Radcliffe College in 1990. She graduated from Radcliffe at the age of 24, in 1904. She was the first person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. One of Keller’s earliest pieces of writing was ‘The Frost King’ (1891) at the age of eleven. There were allegations that the story had been plagiarised from Margaret Canby’s ‘The Frost Fairies’. At the age of 22, Keller published ‘The Story of My Life (1903), written during her time in college. Keller depended on books for pleasure and wisdom. She started with ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’. She went on to read ‘‘Greek Heroes’’, La Fontaine’s ‘‘Fables’’, Howthorne’s ‘‘Wonder Book’’, ‘‘Bible Stories’’, Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, ‘‘The Arabian Nights’’ and ‘‘Robinson Crusoe. In ‘The Story of My Life’ Helen also writes about her pleasures and amusements. Swimming, rowing, canoeing on moonlight nights and sailing were her favourite amusements. Helen Keller had a sixth sense – ‘a soul sense’ which could see, hear, feel all in one. She loved to visit museums and art stores. Music and theatre thrilled her. In the end, the autobiography describes the important persons whom she valued more than anything else in life. They were Bishop Brooks, Henry Drummond, Dr. Everett Hale, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Mrs. Hutton, Dean Howell’s and of course, Mark Twain. These were the persons and friends who had made the story of her life. They turned her limitations into beautiful privileges and achievements.
2. Describe the theme of Helen Keller’s ‘The Story of My Life’.
‘The Story of My Life’ is based on the value of perseverance. It also glorifies the tireless and undying spirit of overcoming insurmounting hurdles and obstacles in life. Due to sheer perseverance, a deaf and dumb child Helen Keller learnt to communicate and interact with the outerward in a meaningful way. There is no doubt that at moments she felt helpless and frustrated but Helen was determined to succeed. She was a wonderful fighter. Helen Keller overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles and blindness. She became an icon of perseverance and untiring struggle throughout the world. The autobiography ‘The Story of My
Life’ was written when she was only 22 years old. Her autobiography ‘The Story of My Life’ still motivates and guides thousands of those unfortunate blind and deaf children for whom there is only darkness and silence in the world. She lived in her isolated world until Miss Sullivan came to open up a world of communication to her. Anne taught her manual sign language, braille and lip-reading. Helen’s achievements are awesome. She had a thirst for knowledge and her love for learning and books was intense. It is quite amazing how she could lead a productive and purposeful life with all her handicaps. Another important theme of the autobiography is the message that even the blind and the deaf can lead a wholesome, purposeful and exciting life. Helen Keller set an example for all the physically challenged, especially the deaf and the dumb. She became the first blind and deaf to earn a bachelor degree. She enjoyed reading Shakespeare, Dickens and had good grounding in Greek and Latin. She read almost all the leading French and German writers. She loved swimming, sailing, canoeing, visiting mountains and beaches. She had an inner eye that could feel the beautiful sights, sounds, inner and smells of Nature. She loved the company of the famous and great personalities of her times such as Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain.
3. Describe the plot or the structure of Helen Keller’s ‘The Story of My Life’.
Helen Keller’s ‘The Story of My Life’ was published in 1903 when she was at the age of twenty two. It includes the story of her life and was written during her time in Redcliffe College. The story of Keller’s ability to communicate despite of her insurmountable handicaps immediately fascinate people. Her story gives us an idea of what it means to be both deaf and blind. She faces extraordinary difficulties, limitations and handicaps with courage and grace. The plot or the storyline of ‘The Story of My Life’ covers only her childhood and young womanhood. The story of Helen Keller’s life is incomplete as she had more than sixty years yet to live. Her story serves as a model for what the physically disabled can accomplish. The storyline starts with the mysterious illness that left her deaf and dumb when she was just one and a half years old. The advent of Miss Sullivan changed the very course of her life. The first five chapters describe how Miss Sullivan taught her words by spelling them into her hands. In this way, she learnt words like ‘‘d-o-l-l’’, ‘‘s-i-t’’, ‘‘p-i-n’’, ‘‘h-a-t’’, ‘‘c-u-p’’, etc. The next important step in her education was learning to read. She learnt to speak in 1890. The winter of 1890 was darkened by the charge of plagiarism against her for writing ‘The Frost King’.Chapters XVI to XXI describe Helen’s struggle to read various subjects and languages and to get an education. She became the first deaf and blind to earn a university degree.
‘The Story of My Life’ devotes Chapter XXII to describe Helen’s pleasures and amusements. Swimming, rowing, canoeing, sailing were her thrilling pastimes. Blindness and deafness couldn’t rob her of her sixth sense—a soul sense which would see, hear, feel, all in one. The last chapter XXIII is devoted to great men of letters and friends like Bishop Brooks, Dr. Hale, Dr. Graham Bell, Mr. & Mrs. Hutton and of course, Mark Twain. They made the story of Helen’s life and transcended her limitations to new privileges and opportunities.
4. Describe Helen Keller’s early life before the advent of her teacher Miss Sullivan. Helen Keller
was born on a plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880 to Captain Arthur Keller. Her father was a former officer of the Confederate Army. Helen was the first baby in the family. The happy days didn’t last long. In the month of February came the illness that closed her eyes and ears. Except for some fleeting memories, all seemed like a nightmare. But during the first nineteen months of her life she had caught faint glimpses of green fields, sky, trees and flowers. The darkness that followed could not wholly blot them out. Her hands started feeling every object and observed every motion. She started making crude signs to communicate with others. A shake of head meant ‘‘No’’ and a nod, meant ‘‘Yes’’. A push meant ‘‘Go’’ and a pull meant ‘‘Come’’. At five, she learned and understood a good deal of what was going on about her. She could fold her clothes and wear them. She began to realise that she was different from other people. Her mother and friends didn’t use signs as she did but talked with their mouths. In those days, a little coloured girl, Martha, the daughter of her cook understood her signs. They spent a great deal of time kneading dough balls and feeding the hens and turkeys. Belle, her dog was her other companion. The family consisted of her father and mother, two older half-brothers, and afterwards, a little sister, Mildred. For a long time she regarded her sister an intruder as she had ceased to be her mother’s only darling.
Helen’s desire to express herself grew. Her failures to make herself understood was followed by outbursts of passion. Her mother’s only ray of hope came from Dickens’s ‘‘American Notes’’. She had read an account of Laura Bridgman who had been educated instead of being deaf and blind. At the age of six, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell advised her father to contact Mr. Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. Within a few weeks Mr. Anagnos gave a comforting assurance that a teacher, Miss Sullivan had been found to teach Helen. Naturally, the most important day in all her lifewas the one on which her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan came. It was the third of March, 1887. And
‘the light of love shone’ on her in that very hour.
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