ENGLISH HOLIDAYS HOMEWORK

THE STORY OF MY LIFEBY HELEN KELLER

Helen Adams Keller (June 27,1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American

author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor

of Arts degree. The prolific author, Keller was well traveled

and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She

campaigned for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and

socialism, as well as many other progressive causes. There was

one great soul in Keller’s life who was the reason for all her achievements in life, Anne Sullivan, Helen’s teacher.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CH-1 TO CH-14

Flow Chart

Helen’s apprehension before writing her autobiography

Birth of Helen 

Helen suffers an illness that leaves her deaf and blind

Companionship with Martha Washington and Belle

Observing herself as different from others

Helen’s initial attempts to communicate

Helen is saved by the nurse from getting burnt

The need for a better means of communication

The train journey to Baltimore 

Exploring the possibilities of Helen’s education at Baltimore

Beginning of the journey of knowledge with Miss Ann Sullivan

Learning lessons in the lap of nature

The first conception of an abstract idea

With the acquisition of words, Helen turns more inquisitive

Helen learns that nature is not always kind

The tedious process of learning for a deaf and blind child like Helen

Learning to read

Learning in the form of stories that were based on the gifts received by Helen

Christmas Eve

Helen’s new pet: Tim:

The journey to Boston in May, 1888

Helen’s maiden ocean voyage: trip to ‘Plymouth’:

Helen’s first history lesson at Bunker Hill

Helen recalls the tragic end of Nancy, her doll

The vacation at Brewster with Mrs. Hopkins

Helen’s first encounter with the sea

Spending a leisurely autumn at the Fern Quarry

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV

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Helen talks about her family and home in this chapter. Helen was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia,

Alabama, to Captain Arthur Henry Keller, a confederate army veteran and a newspaper editor, and Kate Adams Keller.  

Her father, Arthur H. Keller, had been a Confederate Captain who was related to Robert E. Lee. Helen's mother, Kate Adams Keller, was a well-read young woman from an intellectual family.

By all accounts, she was a normal child.  But at 19 months, Helen suffered an illness – scarlet fever or meningitis that left her deaf and blind. 

Although Helen learned basic household tasks and could communicate some of her desires through a series of signs, she did not learn language the way other children do. 

CH 1

CH 2 For the next five years of her life, Helen lived in isolation. She

developed a limited sign language, which her mother Kate understood.

Helen learned to do a few chores – for instance, she would fold and put away her clothes – and she understood when her mother wanted something from upstairs.

As Helen grew, so did her need to express herself. She began to have tantrums that she was unable to prevent or control.

Because of her rages, Helen's household tended to let her have her way whenever possible.

Her one playmate, Martha, the daughter of the Keller's cook, understood Helen's signs, and generally allowed Helen to tyrannize her. The two girls played in the kitchen, fed the hens and turkeys and loved to hunt eggs outdoors.

CH 3 Helen’s mother came across Dickens' American Notes. She read about Laura Bridgman ; a deaf and blind girl who had been

educated. She remembers that some Dr. Howe had discovered a way to teach the

deaf and blind but had died long ago. She is confused that how had the girl (Laura) been taught.

Helen’s father gets to know about Dr. Chisholm . An eminent oculist in Baltimore who had been successful in several cases like that of Helen’s.

In the summer of 1886, Helen's parents took her to Baltimore. She enjoyed everything about the trip – the train, the new people and the change of routine.

They meet Dr. Chisholm only to find that he cannot do anything for their daughter. Dr. Chisholm advises them to consult Dr. Alexander Graham Bell in Washington.

Acting on the advice they went to see Dr. Graham Bell. Dr. Bell advises Mr. Keller to write to Mr. Anagnos (director of the Perkins

Institution ) and ask him if he had a teacher competent to begin Helen’s education.

They follow the advice and a few weeks later receive a letter with the news that a teacher had been found.

Helen remembers some of her childhood incidents. One day she spilled water on her apron and spread it out

to dry before the fire. The apron did not dry as quickly so she drew it nearer to the hearth. The apron immediately caught fire and in a moment her clothes were blazing. Her nurse Viny came to her rescue and Helen was saved.

She also found the use of key. One day she locked her mother in the pantry for three hours until she was discovered.

She also remembers that when Anne Sullivan came to teach her she locked her in a room and didn’t tell anyone where the key was. At last her father got a ladder and Miss Sullivan was brought out through the window.

One day when she discovered her sister Mildred sleeping in her doll Nancy's cradle she got angry and overturned it. Had not Helen’s mother caught the baby she would have been killed.

But afterwards Mildred and Helen grew to love each other.

CH - 4• On 3 March, 1887 Anne Sullivan came to Helen’s

house. In the morning when she came , Anne gave Helen a doll. The little blind children at Perkins Institution had sent it and it was dressed by Laura Bridgman• Helen began playing with it. After sometime Anne

spelled into Helen’s hand d-o-l-l.• Helen got interested and began imitating the finger

play.• When Helen finally did it right she was overjoyed.• She ran downstairs to her mother and imitated it.• In the next few days she learnt to spell many words in

this way. These included pin, hat, cup, sit , stand, walk.• One day while Helen was playing with her new doll,

Anne put another doll in her lap and tried to make her understand that the word ‘doll ’ applied to both.

Earlier in the day, Helen had become frustrated when Sullivan had tried to teach her the difference between "mug" and "water.“

In a rage, Helen threw and broke a new doll. To cool Helen's temper, and perhaps to give herself a

break, Sullivan took her pupil outdoors for a walk. The two came upon someone getting water from the

pump. Just as she spelled everything else, Sullivan spelled "water" into Helen's hand, and something clicked.

Helen suddenly understood that the spellings were names of things.

The rest of that day was spent learning names for people close to her and the names of things in her surroundings.

When they came back into the room, Helen tried to fix the doll but was unable to.

This was the first time she felt sorrow and repentance.

CH 5 In the spring season Anne took Helen to the banks of

Tennessee river. They sat down and Helen got her first lessons about nature there.

The rest of the summer, Helen built her vocabulary. The more it grew, the more she felt like part of the world. Most of her lessons that summer came from the nature.

She had a child's natural fascination with the miracles all around her - how the rain and sun help plants grow, how animals get food.

Helen also learned to fear the power of nature. One day that summer, she was in a tree, waiting for her teacher to return with lunch, when a storm suddenly arose.

The tree started to swing and sway. She got scared and was calm only once her teacher came to her rescue.

This taught her a lesson that nature creates danger for her children and even in her gentle touches hides dangers only wanting her children to overcome them.

It was a long time before she climbed a tree again. When she did, it became one of her favorite pastimes.

CH 6 Her teacher decided that Helen needed to move from

knowing names of concrete things and actions, to knowing how to recognize and communicate abstractions.

One morning she went strolling in the gardens and brought some lovely violets for her teacher. Anne was so happy that she spelled I -LOVE-HELEN on Helen’s hand.

Unable to understand , Helen asked her the meaning of love. Miss Sullivan pointed towards her heart and told her that love is here . Still she was not able to understand the meaning of love.

Her next big step came, again, as she was trying to solve a problem. Helen was concentrating very hard, and Anne Sullivan tapped Helen's forehead, emphatically spelling, "THINK!" Helen says she knew "in a flash" that "think" was the name for what she was doing.

That was the first time of her perception of a feeling. She worked for a long time, she says, before she could

understand the meaning of the word "love."

CH 7 The next important step in her education was learning t o read. As

soon as she could spell a few words , her teacher trained how to arrange words and form short sentences.

Helen began learning to read, using slips of cardboard with words printed in raised letters. At first, she would attach the correct words to objects and spell out sentences about them, such as "doll is on bed," or "girl is in wardrobe." She would play like this for hours.

First she learned through printed slips but then it became a printed book.

Thus by a little game she learned to read. The first book Helen read from was "Reader for Beginners.“ Like any child learning to read, she started out just finding words

she knew. It was like a game of hide-and-seek, and each word she found thrilled her.

Helen did not have formal lessons yet, so all of her learning felt like play. Most of her reading and studying happened outdoors, where Helen kept learning more about the world around her.

She and her teacher often walked to Keller's Landing by the Tennessee River.

CH 8 Nine months after Anne Sullivan came to Tuscumbia, Helen had her

first real Christmas celebration. For the first time, she was a giver, as well as receiver, and she

enjoyed the anticipation. On Christmas Eve, the Tuscumbia schoolchildren had their

Christmas tree, and Helen was invited to participate. She was allowed to present the children their gifts. Helen also had

gifts to open under that tree, which only made her more excited for "real Christmas" to come.

Helen hung her stocking and tried to stay awake to catch Santa Claus leaving presents, but finally fell asleep.

She was the first to wake up Christmas morning and was astounded to find presents everywhere.

Her favorite present came from Anne Sullivan - a canary named Little Tim.

Helen learned to care for him herself. Unfortunately, a big cat got him when she left Tim's cage to get water for the bird.

CH 9 In May 1888, Helen visited the Perkins Institute in Boston. The trip

was "as if a beautiful fairy tale had come true.“ As soon as she arrived, Helen met other children who knew the

manual alphabet. She immediately had friends and felt she had come home to her own country.

She felt great pain, though, when she realized that all of her new friends were blind.

However, when she realized they were "happy and contented," her sorrow passed.

They visited Bunker Hill where she had her first lesson in history. The also went to Plymouth by water which was her first trip to the ocean and her first voyage in the steamboat.

Helen also made friends with Mr. William Endicott and his daughter in Boston. They even visited their homes at Beverly Farms where she played with their dogs and the swiftest horse Nimrod.

She played in a beach for the first time there. Mr. Endicott told her about the great ships that came sailing from Boston bound to Europe.

All these events left her with delightful memories.

CH 10 After visiting Boston, Helen and her teacher vacationed at Cape

Cod with a friend, Mrs. Hopkins. The first time she was in the ocean, Helen was pulled under and

badly frightened. She asked Anne Sullivan, "Who put salt in the water?"

After that, she enjoyed being splashed by the waves from her seat on a large rock.

For a few hours, she took possession of a horseshoe crab. She dragged it to the Hopkins home from the beach, but it escaped the first night.

Helen at the age of seven

CH 11• When fall arrived, Helen traveled with her family to Fern

Quarry for their vacation in the mountains outside Tuscumbia.

• There, Helen spent her days riding her pony, walking outdoors or gathering persimmons with her little sister Mildred and their cousins.

• One day, Helen, Mildred and Miss Sullivan got lost in the woods. Mildred recognized a railroad trestle over a deep gorge, which they decided to use to find their way home. As they were crossing the trestle, a train approached. The three climbed underneath, onto the cross braces, and held on to the swaying trestles, terrified, while the train went overhead.

• With great difficulty they reached back home only to find that the cottage was empty as everyone had gone to look for them.

CH 12 That winter, and almost every winter afterward, Helen

spent in the North. When she was almost nine years old, Helen

experienced snow for the first time. She was very fascinated with the snow covered fields , trees and frozen lakes .

One day a snowstorm came. Everyone rushed outside to feel the tiny snowflakes.

 The next day the whole landscape was covered with snow and nothing could be distinguished from one another.

On the third day the sun rose. Helen put on her coat and went out. Moving in the cold wind was new for her.

Her favorite sport was tobogganing. It brought her never ending joy and she felt divine feeling the wind when tobogganing.

Helen’s urge to speak

With the loss of the ability to hear, Helen’s speech had died down. However, from a young age, she had an impulse to speak. She tried to feel the noise that she made by keeping one hand on her throat and the other on her lips, feeling their movements. She produced sounds not to speak but for the exercise of her vocal chords. There was a feeling of lack in Helen which needed to be fulfilled. She was not satisfied with the means of communication she used and desperately wanted to learn to speak.

In 1890, Mrs. Lamson, one of the teachers at the Perkins Institutions, told Helen about a deaf and blind girl, Ragnhild Kaata who had been taught to speak. Helen resolved that she will also learn to speak and Mrs. Lamson took her for advice and assistance to Miss Sarah Fuller, the principal of Horace Mann School.

CH 13

Speaking lessons from Miss Sarah Fuller

Miss Sarah Fuller was a “sweet-natured lady” who started tutoring Helen on the 26th of March, 1890. Miss Fuller passed Helen’s hand lightly over her face to make her feel her tongue and lips when she made a sound. Within the first hour itself, Helen learnt six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I. “It is warm” is the first complete sentence that Helen managed to utter. In total, eleven lessons were given to her by Miss Fuller. The syllables were broken but, nevertheless, human. She was eager to share her happiness with her family and to see the joy on their faces. Miss Fuller taught her the elements of the speech but she was to continue practicing herself with Miss Sullivan’s help.

Helen learns to speak with Miss Sullivan’s assistance

Miss Sullivan dragged Helen’s attention to the “mispronounced words”. Helen had to depend on the vibrations felt by her fingers, the movement of the mouth and expressions of the face. Discouragement wearied her efforts initially but as soon as she thought of the joy of her family, she felt optimistic. Helen gave up the manual alphabet method to develop her speech even though Miss Sullivan and her friends continued to use it to communicate with her.

The final moment of joy: Helen’s speechFinally, the happiest moment arrived. Helen had developed speech and was eager to return home. As she reached the station and her family heard her speak, they were overjoyed. Her mother was speechless with delight and hugged her tightly; Mildred danced in joy clasped her hand and kissed her; and her father expressed his pride and affection by a “big silence”.

CH-14 Helen’s first attempt to write a composition on

her own

During her stay at the Fern Quarry, Miss Sullivan described to her the beauty of the “late foliage” plants. This apparently revived in Helen the memory of a story that had been read to her in the past. The story had been unconsciously retained in her mind but she thought that she was making up the story herself. She eagerly jotted down her ideas before they would slip away from her mind. The words and images smoothly flowed from her mind and she felt the joy of composing a story. The story was called “The Frost king”. She did not realize that the words and images coming to her mind without effort were not her own. For her, the boundary line between her own ideas and those she gathered from the books were blurred because most of the impressions came to her mind through the “medium of others’ eyes or ears”.

“The Frost King” appreciated by family and friendsAfter completing the story, she read it to everyone at dinner. Despite some pronunciation errors, she managed to impress everyone with her story. However, someone did ask her if she had read the story in a book. Helen did not have the faintest recollection of the story been read to her and so she denied it saying that it was her story and she had written it for Mr. Anagnos. Mr. Anagnos was delighted with her story and published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports.

Helen’s happiness gets crushed in BostonDuring her short stay in Boston, Helen was astonished to discover that her story “The Frost King” was similar to “The Frost Fairies” written by Miss Margaret T. Canby. This story had appeared in the book, “Birdie and His Friends”, which was published even before Helen's birth. The fact that the language of the two stories was alike confirmed that Miss Canby’s story had been read to her and that hers was “a plagiarism”. Her joy changed into grief.

Mr. Anagnos felt deceived. He believed that Helen and Miss Sullivan had deliberately stolen the thoughts of a great writer to win his appreciation.

Helen at the court of investigationHelen was brought before a court of investigation where she was examined and cross-examined by the teachers and officers of the Perkins Institution. The investigators seemed to force Helen to acknowledge that she remembered “The Frost Fairies” being read to her. Helen felt heavy at her heart because of the doubts and suspicions from her loved ones. She could respond to them only in monosyllables. Her consciousness could not be unburdened by the realization that she had only committed a ‘dreadful’ mistake. At last she was allowed to leave the room. Her friends and family assured her that she was a brave girl and that they were proud of her. That night, Helen wept pitiably, suffering for her mistake.

The problem in the composition of “The Frost King” acknowledged

Helen remarks the “Frost King” incident as an important one for her education and, therefore, has included it in the chapter without an attempt to defend herself or laying the blame on anyone else.

Miss Sullivan had never heard “The Frost Fairies”, let alone read it to Helen. So, with the assistance of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, she investigated the matter. At last, it was found out that Miss Canby’s story had been narrated to Helen by Mrs. Sophia Hopkins when she had spent a summer with her at Brewster. Even though Helen did not recall hearing the story, it sustained in her memory.

During this distressing time, Helen received a lot of messages of love and sympathy from her loved ones. She also received a kind note from Miss Canby herself, encouraging her to write something of her own in future that might help others.  This was comforting to Helen but she was afraid of “playing with words” again for a long time fearing that she would repeat her mistake again. Miss Sullivan’s encouragement, however, helped her to continue writing in future.

Helen’s early compositionsHelen recognized herself as a part of the process of learning by “assimilation” and “imitation” to put ideas into words. Her early compositions are mainly assimilation of the descriptions from various forgotten sources. Helen gives an example of the composition she wrote for Mr. Anagnos about the beauty of the Greek and Italian old cities. Mr. Anagnos appreciated the ‘poetical essence’ in her ideas. Helen was happy that even though the works resembled a “crazy patchwork” comprising of her own thoughts and others’, they proved her ability to express of her admiration for beautiful objects in clear and “animated” language.

Effects of “The Frost King” incident in the later life of HelenThe good part of the tragic experience of “The Frost King” was that Helen started thinking about the problems of composition.After the publication of “The Story of My Life” in the “Ladies’ Home Journal”, Mr. Anagnos, in a letter to Macy, stated his views supporting Helen in the matter of the “Frost King”. He also stated that he had cast his vote in favour of Helen in the court of investigation.

CHARACTERSSKETCHES

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell first met Helen when she was six years old and her parents brought her to him for advice on how to teach her. Dr. Bell

remained a friend to Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. “The Story of My Life “is

dedicated to him.

ARTHUR KELLER

Helen’s father, Arthur Keller had been a captain in the Confederate army. He was a hospitable man

who enjoyed bringing guests home to see his

garden.

MISS SULLIVANWhen Anne went to teach Helen

Keller, she was only twenty years old and a recent graduate of the Perkins Institution for the

Blind. Throughout Helen’s life, Sullivan was dedicated to supporting her efforts in

education and in social reform, which was uninterrupted even

after Sullivan married Helen Keller’s editor, John Albert Macy.

Sullivan died in 1936.

MILDRED KELLERMildred was Helen’s younger

sister . Their relationship did not start on a good note owing to

jealousy on the part of helen . Helen was jealous that her mother paid

more attention to mildred .However ,with time , the

two sisters developed a loving bond . Even without a proper language for

communication , the two sisters hearts felt for each other . They had

long walks together and often mildred would explain the sceneries to helen . Later , Mildred joined the

cambridge school with helen and the two sisters spent some memorable

years there in new york

BY:- LAKSHAY BANSAL 10 – B ROLL NO:- 10217