The Day Language Came Into My Life By Helen Keller Essay

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Helen Keller, in “The Day Language Came into My Life,” accounts for her life of a seven

year old girl and her “eventful” meeting with Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Imparting on an

experience of struggle and new found hope, Keller has intrinsically woven together a story that

defines the importance of language and the role it plays in our everyday lives. At face value, one

may have difficulty in completely grasping the difficulties that the author had faced – being

blind, deaf, and once mute. Yet despite her disabilities, Keller has developed highly apt literacy

skills and has shown the impossible to be quite possible. Having emerged from a world of

solitary darkness, Helen Keller has succeeded in expressing the importance of language …show more content…

At 19 months of age, Keller contracted “brain fever,” which left her blind, deaf, and

mute (Helen Keller Biography, Biography.com). Prior to her meeting with Anne Sullivan,

Keller recalled only feeling bitterness and anger. This period of time in her life was described as

“a tangible white darkness,” (Keller Chapter IV) and without direction. Keller was unable to

attribute meaning to not just her own life, but her entire environment, which existed as nothing

more than a chaotic cluster. Here, Keller annotates her struggle of not knowing, not being able

to communicate or to properly express herself to anyone and anything. The absence of language,

in any known form, paved way to the despair and solitude that Keller had felt in the world. From

1

Keller’s experience, it can be seen that language not only provides a way to express oneself, but

also as an anchor that holds one to their belonging and place in the world, a home.

Throughout the beginning of the author’s story, Keller’s description of her negativity and

languish were described as “passionate outburst [or struggles]” (Chapter IV). When

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