UNIT – 14
Helen Keller
Read the passage.
PART I
On
27th June, 1880, a baby
girl was born to Captain Arthur
Keller and
Kate
Keller in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
The proud parents named
their daughter Helen. She was a happy
baby. She was also very intelligent. At six months she could even say “Wha-Wah” for water.
In January,
1882, Helen almost died of a mysterious
illness. Her parents were relieved when the doctor
finally told them, “You are very lucky parents. She’s going to live.” But shortly after the doctor left, Mrs. Keller saw a strange look
in her baby’s eyes. She
called to her, “Helen, Helen.” She then screamed
for her husband, “Captain, come quickly. Look at Helen.” Before he arrived he heard her cry, “She
can’t see or hear! My baby is blind
and deaf!”
Helen’s world was a dark
and silent place. She became a very difficult child
to live with. She ran about
the house doing whatever she wanted. She became angry and
violent very easily and threw things
onto the floor or at other people. She fought with other children and
sometimes hurt them.
Helen was almost a wild child. No one could control her. The Kellers didn’t know what to do.
They needed help. In February,
1887, Captain
Keller
contacted the Perkins Institute for
the Blind in Boston. He asked the director or
the Institute for help with Helen.
The director
of Institute spoke to a young woman called Annie Sullivan.
He told Annie about Helen and asked her if she would like to become Helen’s teacher.
The director explained, “Helen is a very intelligent child, but she has no language. There’s a treasure inside
her that needs to be opened. And I think
you can open it for her.”
PART II
Annie Sullivan was excited by the idea of
helping a deaf-blind child. She agreed to travel to Tuscumbia and became Helen’s teacher. When she arrived at the Kellers’ house, she found a very messy,
spoilt little girl.
Helen grabbed Annie’s suitcase and immediately began pulling
everything out of it.
Annie took a present for Helen from her suitcase. It was doll. Then, using a special alphabet, she spelt into
Helen’s hand, “D-O-L-L. Doll.
I’m going to teach you language, the door
to the world for you,” she told Helen.
Helen grabbed the doll and threw it
violently onto the floor. Annie tried to make her pick it up. But, instead, Helen kicked Annie in the face and knocked out a tooth!
At
the dining
table that evening,
Annie found that Helen was allowed to eat with her hands
and take food from other people’s plates. Captain Keller explained, “We can’t have any peace and
quiet unless we give her what she wants.” Annie said, “That’s exactly the point. This child is spoilt.”
Annie believed that Helen should learn good manners. She tried to stop Helen from getting out of her dining
chair. But Helen fought back. Then Annie said to the family,
“Please leave me alone with her. I can’t
teach her anything if you just let her do whatever she wants.”
PART III
I
stayed with Helen and asked the family to leave the dining room. Captain Keller was angry with me, but he agreed to
go. I forced Helen to sit in a chair
and eat from her own plate with a spoon. She was very strong. She kept knocking over her chair and throwing
things onto the floor. But finally she
sat and ate her food.
On
that first evening, Mrs. Keller wasn’t very happy with me.
“Miss Sullivan,” she said, “I’m not sure
about your method of teaching Helen.” “She ate with a spoon and
folded her napkin,” I told her. “My Helen folded her napkin!” said Mrs. Keller. She couldn’t believe her ears!
The next
day, I told Helen’s father, “I can’t do anything with Helen unless I have her all to
myself. I want her to depend on me for
her food, her clothes, everything.” Then I asked him if Helen and I could live alone in the guesthouse
in the Kellers’ garden. He wasn’t happy with the idea,
but he agreed. He said that Helen and I could live in the
guesthouse but only for two weeks. “Two
weeks!” I thought. “That’s a very short time
to perform a miracle!”
In
the guesthouse, I had complete control over Helen.
One day, I remember she wanted a piece of cake. I said, “OK, Helen, if this is what you want,
there’s a word for it.” I spelt into her hand, “C-A-K-E, Cake.” Then I said, “When you understand that
there’s a word for everything, the world will be yours.”
The
two weeks passed. On the last
morning Mrs. Keller spoke to me. “Miss Sullivan, your eyes look very tired,”
she said. “Why don’t you rest? We’re very happy with all that you’ve done
for Helen.
She’s a different child.” “She is different,” I said. “She has manners,
but she doesn’t have language. She can
spell thirteen nouns and five verbs,
but she doesn’t know what they mean.”
Later
that day, Helen and I were in the garden. I was thinking. It was my last day. I needed more time. We walked over to the water pump. I began pumping. Then I put Helen’s hand under the gushing
water. As usual, I spelt the word for
her, “W-A-T-E-R,
Water.”
Then
something happened. In a very strange voice,
as if she remembered something from when she was a baby, I heard Helen say, “Wah-Wah.” Then she grabbed my hand and spelt, “W-A-T-E-R.”
I called for her parents.
Captain and Mrs. Keller came running out of the
house. Helen reached for her mother
and spelt, “M-O-T-H-E-R” into her hand, then, “T-E-A-C-H-E-R.” Next, Helen put her arms around
me. She was so happy. She now understood what words were. At last she had a key to language. The world was hers. I help her hand and spelt the words “I, L-O-V-E,
H-E-L-E-N.”
Helen went on to learn to speak, read and write. In 1904, she graduated from Radcliffe College, one of the best colleges
in the United States.
She later wrote books, appeared in films,
toured foreign countries and became
famous all over the world. Helen and Annie stayed together for fifty years,
until Annie’s death in 1936. Helen died in 1968.
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