Description
A severe illness took away Helen Keller’s sight and hearing when she was nineteen months old, leaving the formerly lively toddler in a world of quiet and darkness. Helen couldn’t talk, so she got angry and threw tantrums, her intelligence trapped behind walls that no one could get through. Her family was worried that she would never be able to go out of her shell. But in 1887, when Helen was almost seven, a determined young teacher named Anne Sullivan came from the Perkins School for the Blind. She was virtually blind herself, but her strength and creativity would change Helen’s life forever.
Helen’s own vivid description of that change is called The Story of My Life. She tells the story of the “miracle at the water pump,” when Anne spelled “w-a-t-e-r” into her palm while water poured over it. Helen calls this moment the key that opened up the whole cosmos. That day, Helen started to learn the manual alphabet, Braille reading, and speech. She often practiced late into the night with Anne’s patient support. Every new word was a revelation: “home,” “mama,” “sunshine,” and so on. They made Helen want to know and label everything around her.
Helen’s story takes us through her early studies at the Perkins Institute and subsequently at the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf. There, she learned how to speak clearly, even though she was still deaf. She talks of the joy of feeling ocean waves for the first time, the smell of hyacinths, and the feel of library books, showing that there is more to the world than what you can see and hear. Her chapters on Radcliffe College, where she became the first deaf-blind person to get a Bachelor of Arts degree, talk with both her academic success and the emotional toll of adjusting to a world where she could hear and see. She relied on volunteer “interpreters” who finger-spelled lectures in her hand.
Helen’s narrative, nevertheless, isn’t only about her own success. She writes with a lot of passion on how she is becoming a voice for people with disabilities. She talks about speaking tours when she talked to thousands of people about getting better education and rights for her fellow “invisible” citizens. She fought for women’s right to vote, workers’ rights, and peace, which showed her belief that overcoming personal problems meant she had to fight for bigger social issues.
Helen’s thanks for Anne Sullivan are the most important thing in the book. She honors Anne’s unwavering faith in her potential, remembering how Anne dealt with illness, tiredness, and critics
who doubted her yet never stopped teaching Helen that “ignorance is blind indeed, but more hopelessly blind than even the darkness of night is the blindness of the heart.”
About the Author
Published in 1903, The Story of My Life remains a testament to human possibility. Helen Keller’s account transcends the specifics of deaf‑blind experience to embody universal themes of perseverance in adversity, the liberating power of communication, and the profound impact one dedicated mentor can have on a life. Her journey from voiceless isolation to eloquent global spokesperson reminds readers that with love, patience, and courage, even the most daunting barriers can be overcome, and every human life can bloom into its fullest potential.
Product Details
- Title: The Story of My Life
- Author: Helen Keller
- ISBN-13: 9788175994034
- Publisher: Easton Press
- Originally Published: 1903; this edition 2003
- Pages: 256
- Binding: Paperpack
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