![]() Though it is a simple sentence, this moment has remained ingrained in Helen's mind throughout her life, because, as she points out, a deaf child never forgets the first words she speaks. This is Helen's first spoken sentence, uttered in 1890 when she was learning to speak with the help of Miss Fuller at the Horace Mann School. "It is warm." Helen Keller (Chapter 13, pg. The story of her life is actually the story of many lives that came together to push her towards her goals. Helen speaks extremely highly of her friends throughout her autobiography, making it clear that she understands that her success is in part because of their dedication to her. Helen finishes her personal memoir with this quote, one that acknowledges not her own abilities and achievements, but rather the friends who helped her to get to this place. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation." Helen Keller (Chapter 23, pg. "Thus, it is that my friends have made the story of my life. When she immerses herself in a book, she is not handicapped in any way, able to live vicariously through the characters, feeling their pain and triumph. After she learns to read, Helen can experience books the way any other person can. Helen has a visceral reaction to reading this graphic Shakespeare scene, and this experience illustrates how profound an impact the books she reads have on her. Anger seized me, my fingers refused to move, I sat rigid for one long moment, the blood throbbing in my temples, and all the hatred that a child can feel concentrated in my heart.” Helen Keller (Chapter 21, pg. “I read`King Lear’ soon after`Macbeth,’ and I shall never forget the feeling of horror when I came to the scene in which Gloucester's eyes are put out. With this experience, she learns that, while nature is beautiful, it is also powerful-and it will not always be on her side. This passage is wonderfully expressive and provides a tactile example of the oft-repeated assertion that when you lose one of your senses, you are forced to become more attuned to your remaining senses. 12)įear clutches at Helen’s heart because she is alone and she senses a thunderstorm is about to place her in danger. I knew it, it was the odour that always precedes a thunderstorm, and a nameless fear clutched at my heart.” Helen Keller (Chapter 5, pg. I knew the sky was black, because all the heat, which meant light to me, had died out of the atmosphere. This moment of understanding stands out in Helen's memory as one of the highest points in her education. She at last makes the connection when Miss Sullivan places one of her hands under a water spout, and spells w-a-t-e-r into the other. Before this point, she had imitated Miss Sullivan spelling words into her hand without understanding how they were connected to the objects she gave her. This quote encompasses the moment when Helen finally realizes what she is learning. “Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten–a thrill of returning thought and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.” Helen Keller (Chapter 4, pg. Miss Sullivan's arrival gave Helen the ability to navigate in spite of this darkness, empowering her to set her sights on lofty goals that she would one day be able to reach. Without the ability to communicate with and understand those around her, she was entirely in the dark, similar to being on a ship shrouded in fog without any sense of direction. In this quote, Helen masterfully employs metaphor to explain what the world was like for her before she began her education. “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? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was.” Helen Keller (Chapter 4, pg. This truth is important to Helen's own story, because she does not allow herself to be set back by the condition that befalls her. Potential is in no way afforded or limited by the circumstances of one’s birth because, in one way or another, we are all connected to both kings and slaves. Keller is suggesting in her usual poetic way one of the essential truths of being: we are all connected. Less than a page into the book, Helen Keller offers this brilliant metaphor that boils down the essential quality of being human and puts a sharp sword into every single argument supporting purity of blood. “…there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.” Helen Keller (Chapter 1, pg.
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