Helen Keller

Main Characters:

Arthur Keller, Kate Keller, Helen Keller, Doctor, Anne Sullivan, Laura Bridgman, and Michael Anagnos

Overall Theme:

Helen Keller is young and unable to learn without assistance due to her blindness and loss of hearing.  Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is patient and is able to bring structure and order to Helen’s life, as well as an understanding and appreciation for learning and sharing that love of learning with others.  Helen Keller graduated college and lectured in countries other than her native United States.

Summary:

When Helen Keller was a young child, she contracted a high fever that left her sightless and unable to hear.  Being the parents of a non-seeing and non-hearing child was a hardship on two loving parents who did all they could but seemed to do it in the wrong way.  Out of desperation, they hired a young educator, Anne Sullivan, to teach and train the young Helen.  Much to the parent’s dismay, Sullivan was a strict and firm disciplinarian with the young, spoiled Keller girl.

Sullivan and Helen Keller moved into a house not far down the lane from the main Keller house.  There they began to develop a trust and relationship of love and respect for each other.  This soon turned into an atmosphere that was ripe for learning without the interference of the Keller parents.

Once Helen Keller began to put meaning with the finger spelling that she was doing, she began to learn many words at a rapid rate.  Her world began to open and she was able to complete her education and continue advanced training at the university.

Background:

Helen Keller was an American author and lecturer, who overcame considerable physical handicaps.  She served as an inspiration to other afflicted people.  She started her training with Sullivan at the age of seven years.  She quickly learned Braille and learned to speak after only one month of study.  Ten years later she entered Radcliffe College where she graduated with honors. 

Throughout her life she worked and raised funds for the American Foundation for the Blind and traveled and lectured in many countries.  After World War II she visited the wounded veterans in American hospitals and lectured in Europe on behalf of the physically handicapped.

Her writings include The Story of My Life (1902), The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), Midstream—My Later Life (1930), Let Us Have Faith (1940), Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy (1955) and The Open Door (1957). Her life is the subject of a motion picture, The Unconquered (1954) and a play, The Miracle Worker (1959; motion picture 1962) by William Gibson.