The Miracle Worker
When pondering on life as not only a blind child but also a deaf child, one might say perception of the world and life is impossible. In the movie The Miracle Worker, Helen Keller was blind, deaf and mute since she had been a baby. Helen was incapable of communicating to anyone. The question, “do you think she had an accurate idea of color,” to me, is defined through her inability to know the difference between colors and physical appearance on objects certain colors, for instance the sun being yellow. Because Helen was blind and deaf, she could not actually see the color pink or yellow I can see. Helen had never actually seen color; therefore an accurate idea of a color is nearly impossible.
Being blind or deaf would be very difficult, as the person who is blind has no way of visualizing the current world they live in, and being deaf, one cannot hear about the world. In the book What is it like to be a bat by Thomas Nagel, Nagel states an idea that without experience we cannot comprehend nor be conscious of what the world is truly like. Nagel believes that, “without some idea, therefore, of what the subjective character of experience is, we cannot know what is required of a physicalist theory” (Nagel, 1974, 437). Nagel is saying that without having any experience, one cannot fully know physical or mental truth. As Nagel explains the lifestyles of bats, it helps justify the outlook humans have on life in comparison. As a human, we cannot comprehend the reality of a bat, we cannot see what they see or hear what they hear unless we actually do see it instead of just assuming. It ‘s like a deaf and blind child to a child who is neither, reality is different, and they only know as much as they have learned throug...
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...hen she is let out of the black and white room or given a color television, she will learn what it is like to see something red,”(Jackson, 2012, pg. 281-282), which describes a woman who lives in a black-and-white room. In comparison, this helps me believe that Helen has not experienced colors being blind; therefore Helen cannot possess the ideas of any color in her mind because she has yet to experience it.
I think that Helen cannot see the accurate colors we can perceive. It is because of my own perception that I can actually see colors in the world. If I were blind I could never visualize the color pink that someone who can actually see, would. Helen for instance, had been blind since she was born, meaning Helen had never seen an accurate color in reality, nor could she fully imagine what a color looks like. Helen’s inexperience with colors justifies my belief.
In Wendy Mass’ novel, A Mango Shaped Space, the main character Mia Winchell is very secretive. Mia Winchell appears to be a typical kid, but she's keeping a big secret, her ability, called synesthesia. Sounds, numbers, and words all have color for her. No one knows, and Mia wants to keep it that way. While Mia was in the principal's office she thought, “I wanted to tell the principal that his name was the color of freshly piled hay. I quickly thought better of it. Even at eighty years old, I was smart enough to realize that something was very wrong and until I figured out what it was, I’d better not get myself in deeper trouble. So I pretended I made everything up,” (4).
How do you define healing? In the dictionary it says that to be healed you are cured, resolved, free from worry. But is that what everyone else thinks of healed as. In the novel Ordinary People, written by Judith Guest, Conrad Jarret goes from being a young boy to an adult within a year. He did not know what he was like himself, in the beginning of the story, then there were things that made him grow, and lastly did he heal?
Languor in this story means the lack of physical or mental energy. Also, in this story, tangible white darkness means where you are blind and all you can see is the darkness in your eyes that is sometimes turns whitish because of the exposure to light. These connotations contribute to the character arc because they both give a bit of background on how Helen Keller feels due to her health condition.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, it became one of his greatest legacies. In the first line he wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" (U.S. Constitution, paragraph 2). Jefferson wrote these words to give inspiration to future generations in the hopes that they would be able to change what he either would or could not. The word “men” in the Declaration in the early 1700 and 1800’s meant exactly that, but even then it only was true for some men, not all. Women, children, and other segments of the population such as slaves and Native Americans were clearly not included. Jefferson himself was a slave owner and held the belief that women were inferior to men. Though women played no role in the political environment, they were crucial to the development and economic success of the times. The strength, courage and work ethic of pioneer women like Martha Ballard in “A Midwife’s Tale” (Thatcher, 1990) created the very fabric of the community and wove it together so the community could thrive.
Colors of cretin things can appear different at some situations. For example, blood as we know it is red, that color that you see through your eyes of the blood in our veins is “red” but underwater, at 30 feet underneath the surface your blood turns, or rather appears green due to the light bouncing off of it is much less than it is at the surface as mentioned in the article “Did you know that your blood is green underwater?” by Fun Facts (see Article 2). These examples got me interested from the class discussions we had and how the philosophers viewed sense perception and the kind of thought they had of
As a child, Claudia seems to resent black exploitation from the past as she does not embody the longing for ‘white perfection’ as other characters do. After receiving a white doll with blue eyes as a present, Claudia resents it and states ‘I could not love it’ (p. 19). It could be argued that the doll symbolizes prejudice against black people and how the appearance of white skin and blue eyes is preferred. As Claudia does not favour the white stereotype, it seems as though she is not living in a state of self -hatred that seems to stem from the past and live on in the present for others. Claudia and Pecola Breedlove are in the same age group, yet it could be argued that she does not affiliate herself with the same longing that Pecola feels to be ‘saved’ from black injustice by the appearance of blue eyes. Furthermore, it is argued by a critic that ‘Claudia MacTeer is Morrison’s persona in the novel, her fictional “second self” . The Bluest Eye seems to reflect this, as Morrison wants to highlight black prejudice by opposing it in her novel. It could be suggested that Morrison uses Claudia in the novel to represent her own resentment and need to break away from the past, stopping it living on in her own present, as well as the present of society. Claudia seems to provide a sense of hopefulness for the future rather than a cycle of personal antagonism, represented in
In the novel, the Black narrator Claudia talks about how the ideal beauty of their society is White women, stating, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day “worthy” you may have it’ (Morrison 20). This quote is significant because it proves that the culture promotes the appearance of White women over Black women. Due to the large amounts of racism, many African Americans believed they lived in poverty because they were black. The narrator explained, “The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they were ugly” (Morrison 38). The discrimination was so extreme in the novel that the African American characters started to idealize the white race. One example of this is when Pecola, a black girl, yearned for blue eyes because she believes all of the cruelty in her life will then go away. This strong desire ultimately leads to insanity (Morrison 174). The psychological suffering that many of the young female characters went through is result of discrimination towards a racial
Many people view blindness as a disability, but could these people be blind to their surroundings? Even though the narrator can perfectly see with his eyes, he lacks in understanding awareness. The narrator blindness isn 't physical, like many vision impaired people. His blindness is psychological, and his blindness causes him to become jealous. His blindness blocks his perception of viewing the world in a different way. This only causes him to see the physical attributes of humans, and thus shut off his mindfulness of viewing human personalities. As a result of a closed mind, the narrator doesn 't understand how Robert was able to live with the fact that he was never able to see his wife in the flesh, but the narrator fails to see that Robert vision of his wife was intimate. On the other hand, Robert blindness is physical. This causes Robert to experience the world in a unique manner. Without Robert eyesight, he is able to have a glimpse of a human personality. He uses his disability to paint pictures in his head to experience the world. By putting his psychological blindness aside, the narrator is able to bond with Robert, and he grasps the understanding of opening his eyes for the first time, and this forms a new beginning of a
Blindness is defined as the lack of visual perception. Blindness can also be defined as not being able to see things for what they really are. One may be able to see but may not be able to see the true meaning of something. Black communities often refuse to see the way that white people treat them. In Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man many events contribute to the overall theme of sight vs. blindness.
It is as if being color blind was an alternative, when history has proven differently. Nonetheless, the reality still remained that Hurston’s identity was undeniable in a world where color mattered, but her pride and acknowledgment stayed
The film Sophie Scholl reflects the repetition of the concept of the “hero from across the sea”. One of Northrop Frye's lessons on the biblical stories, he explores in detail what “the hero from across the sea” means. This theory consists of a wasteland that is ruled by the impotent old king, whose land is being destroyed by a sea monster whose only goal is to demand human sacrifice. In this story, the king's daughter “the princess tied to a rock” is chosen as a sacrifice to the sea monster, but luckily a “hero from across the sea” comes to her rescue, returning the “fertility” of the land. In the movie Sophie Scholl, this idea shows various of times throughout the film.
The author tells the story very well through her words. Her word choice helps paint a clear picture in reader’s mind. In the novel, Susan Boone tells Samantha to color these eggs, but she doesn’t give her a white colored pencil so she must use her eyes to see the colors. “I saw the purple shadow beneath the egg. I saw the pink light from the sun outside the window.
It also shows how limited her lifestyle is right now. The only true difference between the new and old wife is the husband. According to the narrator Alice has eyes that change color. Marc first mention that her eyes looked green against the blue sky. The narrator describes that her eyes are green.
Eva Hoffman’s memoir, Lost in Translation, is a timeline of events from her life in Cracow, Poland – Paradise – to her immigration to Vancouver, Canada – Exile – and into her college and literary life – The New World. Eva breaks up her journey into these three sections and gives her personal observations of her assimilation into a new world. The story is based on memory – Eva Hoffman gives us her first-hand perspective through flashbacks with introspective analysis of her life “lost in translation”. It is her memory that permeates through her writing and furthermore through her experiences. As the reader we are presented many examples of Eva’s memory as they appear through her interactions. All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented.
Fragments of glass reflect pieces of her. Lily-white skin. Primped, hanging curls the color of corn. A button nose. Cherry ribbon lips. Opaque forget-me-not blue eyes. The dark pupils dilate and swivel, dilate and swivel, but her eyes are sightless. She sees, but she does not.