Helen Keller Dialectical Journal

Hunter McCraw

Little kids can get extremely excited at things sometimes, because they are easily amused. When Helen Keller was a child, one of the things that excited her and made her feel amused was when her teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan came and taught her things. Little kids do not always get very happy about learning things, but Helen Keller was deaf and blind so learning new things amazed her. The events of this day and meeting Sullivan taught Keller many things that were life-changing for Keller, because of her disabilities.

The day was sunny and Keller had been waiting on the porch for something she did not know was coming. Keller’s teacher had approached her, and she began teaching her things such as spelling and associating the words with the object that was its name. This made Keller feel as if she were on top of the world. She even states, “When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly, I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride.”, which depicts her feelings for that moment and how it was inspiring and life-changing for her. Although this feeling was one of a kind, it would not stop there.

Helen Keller discusses one of her experiences with Sullivan, as they go to a well-house and Keller discovers what water truly is.

This gives her hope for many new things to be learned. For example, Keller portrays her emotions by stating, “That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, but barriers that could in time be swept away.”. This quote repeats the feeling of hope in Keller’s mind that she can learn unlimited

things.

Even though some things she learned made her feel extraordinary, there were things she learned that made her feel different for the first time. Keller had became frustrated with her lessons becoming so frequent that she broke her doll. Once she broke her doll, she felt gloomy, because she now knows what the doll is, and that it cannot be fixed. She states “...for I had realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.”, which not only employs what her feelings were at the time, but shows how she would not have known what these feelings were like if it were not for her teacher.

Sullivan taught Keller things that made her Keller feel many different ways. This was a great thing, because it propelled her thinking process to the next level making it easier to learn new things and feel new ways about those things. Keller had never felt these ways before, which explains how her encounters with her teacher could be life-changing moments. Helen Keller is not like other kids, but that does not mean she cannot feel the same way as them. Sullivan made this possible for Keller, and Keller concludes the excerpt with, “ 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…”. Because of her disabilities, meeting Sullivan was one of the best days of Helen Keller’s life.