Unit 1, Listening 2, The Story of My Life
The Story of My Life
Helen Keller: I
cannot recall what happened during the first months after my illness. I only
know that I sat in my mother’s lap or clung to her dress as she went about her
household duties. My hands felt every object and observed every motion, and in
this way, I learned to know many things. Soon I felt the need of some
communication with others and began to make crude[1]
signs. A shake of the head meant “No” and a nod, “Yes.” A pull meant “Come” and
a push, “Go.” Was it bread that I wanted? Then I would imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering them. If I
wanted my mother to make ice cream for dinner, I made the sign for working the
freezer and shivered, indicating cold. My mother, moreover, succeeded in making
me understand a good deal. I always knew when she wished me to bring her
something, and I would run upstairs or anywhere else she indicated. Indeed, I
owe to her loving wisdom all that was bright and good in my long night. . . .
I do not remember when I first realized that I was different
from other people, but I knew it before my teacher came to me. I had noticed
that my mother and my friends did not use signs as I did when they wanted
anything done, but talked with their mouths. Sometimes I stood between two
persons who were conversing and touched their lips. I could not understand and
was vexed. I moved my lips and gesticulated
frantically without result. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and
screamed until I was exhausted[2]. . .
.
Many incidents of
those early years are fixed in my memory, isolated, but clear and distinct,
making the sense of that silent, aimless, dayless life all the more intense. . . .
Meanwhile, the desire to express myself grew. The few signs
I used became less and less adequate,
and my failures to make myself understood were invariably followed by outbursts
of passion. I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic
efforts to free myself. I struggled—not that struggling helped matters, but the
spirit of resistance was strong within me; I generally broke down in tears and
physical exhaustion. If my mother happened to be near, I crept into her arms,
too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest. After a while, the
need of some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred
daily, sometimes hourly. . . .
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one
on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with
wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which
it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven
years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch,
dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying
to and fro in the house, that something unusual was about to happen, so I went
to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of
honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers
lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had
just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the
future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness[3] had
preyed upon me continually for weeks, and a deep languor[4]
had succeeded this passionate struggle.
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[5]
her way toward the shore with plummet[6]
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[7] or
sounding line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give
me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in
that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I
supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in
the arms of her who had come to reveal
all things to me, and more than all things else, to love me.
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room
and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had
sent it … but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a
little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word “d-o-l-l.” I
was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it.
When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly, I
was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother,
I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I
was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers
go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed, I learned to spell in
this uncomprehending[8] way
a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup, and a few
verbs like sit, stand, and walk. But my teacher had been
with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name. . . .
Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that “m-u-g”
is mug and that “w-a-t-e-r” is water, but I persisted in confounding[9]
the two. In despair, she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it
at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts, and
seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I
felt the fragments of the broken
doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I
had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived, there was no
strong sentiment or tenderness. I
felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a
sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought
me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if
a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with
pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the
fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing
water, and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed
over one hand, she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly,
then rapidly.
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of
her fingers.
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. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something
that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul; gave it
light, hope, joy; set it free! There were barriers[10]
still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name,
and each name gave birth to a new thought. . . . I learned a great many new
words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother,
father, sister, teacher were among them—words that were to
make the world blossom for me, “like Aaron’s rod, with flowers.” It would have
been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the
close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me and for
the first time longed for a new day to come. . . .
I recall many incidents of the summer of 1887 that followed
my soul’s sudden awakening. I did nothing but explore with my hands and learn
the name of every object that I touched, and the more I handled things and
learned their names and uses, the more joyous and confident grew my sense of
kinship[11]
with the rest of the world.
[1] crude: adjective simple and rough
[2] exhausted: adjective extremely tired
[3] bitterness: noun an angry or unhappy feeling
[4] languor: noun a pleasant state of feeling lazy
[5] grope: verb to feel with your hands because you cannot see clearly
[6] plummet: noun A
piece of lead or other heavy material attached to a line, used for measuring
the depth of water
[7] compass: noun an instrument for finding directions
[8] uncomprehending: adjective unable to understand
[9] confound: verb to confuse somebody
[10] barrier: noun something that makes it difficult for someone to make progress
[11] kinship: noun a feeling of being close to somebody
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