Helen Keller
Sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. These are all senses. Most people are born with all five of them. As someone with all five senses, I could not imagine not having, or even losing a sense or two. There are some that are born with only four. There are some that loose one or two of them throughout their lives. The most iconic figure of the later is Helen Keller.
Helen was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. She was born just like most people, with all five senses. She was born to Captain Arthur H., Kate Adams Keller, and an older brother William Simpson Keller. She was a happy and healthy baby. When she was 19 months old, she became devastatingly ill. This unknown illness caused her to go blind and deaf. As she began
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to grow up, she became a troublesome and wild child. On March 3, 1887 Helen’s life would be forever changed. On that day, she met Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Anne had come to Tuscumbia to be Helen’s teacher. Like Helen, Anne had vision problems. Helen was a wild child and Anne believed the only way to success was to teach Helen love and obedience. Anne taught Helen to spell using sign language. She would sign different letters into Helen’s hands and then give her the object that she had spelled out. The first object that she did this with was a doll. Helen did not understand exactly what she was doing because she didn’t know what words are. She just continued to spell the things that Anne taught her. Anne decided that it was pointless to teach Helen things if she didn’t understand what she was doing. On April 5, 1887, Anne took Helen outside to help her understand the words. Helen had been confusing the words mug and milk with the word drink. Anne walked Helen over to a water pump. She put one of Helen’s hands under the flowing water, and spelled water in Helen’s other hand. Helen then realized that w-a-t-e-r was the cool liquid substance that was running over her hand. She then demanded to learn the words of everything around her. That day she learned 30 words. After that day at the water pump, Helen quickly mastered the alphabet, not only in Sign Language, but also in Braille. She also learned to write. Her handwriting was surprisingly easy to read. Not only could she write, but she could also read. She learned to read Braille, and she was really good at it. When Helen was ten years old, she decided that she wished to learn to speak. Anne and Helen went to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Blind. There they met Sarah Fuller. She taught Anne lessons for her to use to teach Helen to speak. Helen did enjoy learning to speak but never enjoyed the way her voice sounded. Her voice was hard to understand which was frustrating for her. Helen always wanted to go to college. Even as a kid, it was her dream to be able to go to college and graduate with a degree. Helen enrolled in the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in 1898. Two years later, she was enrolled in Radcliffe in the fall of 1900. After 4 years, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. She was the deaf-blind person to ever achieve this. Anne was a big part of this success. Anne would read everything to Helen and then sign it into her hands. During her time at Radcliffe, she became an author. She wrote several different things including essays, speeches, stories, articles, and even an Autobiography. She wrote stories about Anne, her adventure to Scotland, and religious stories. She even published a journal of hers. She wrote over 475 speeches and essays that are now located in the Helen Keller Archives. To write all of this, she would first use a Braille typewriter and then translate them on a regular type writer once they had been edited. Helen had a big voice in many different areas around the world.
Here at home, she protested World War I, she fought for the cause of worker’s rights and women’s suffrage, and she was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Helen felt strongly about assisting the blind. She became part of the American Foundation for the Blind in 1921 and would work there for more than 40 years. She fought to assist the blind in any way she could. She traveled around the country which caused a tidal wave of change. Everything from education, rehabilitation centers, and state commissions were created in the assistance of the blind peoples across the country. In 1946, Helen assisted in forming a special service for deaf-blind …show more content…
people. Not only did she believe in assisting the blind people in her own country. She strongly believed that blind people around the world deserved to have a voice. She traveled the world to ensure that blind people everywhere had that voice. In 1915, she was a member of the first board of directors of the American Braille Press. She made seven trips to 35 countries between 1946 and 1957. She received the Lions Humanitarian Award from the Lions Clubs International Foundation in 1961 for everything she did for people that she did not even know. Helen’s story comes to an end on June 1, 1968 in Westport, Connecticut. Helen died just weeks before her 88th birthday. She was cremated and her ashes were laid to rest next to Anne Sullivan Macy, and Polly Thomson. Helen was ready to go. She knew that she had accomplished everything that she had ever wanted. She lived her life to the fullest potential. Helen Keller ended her life with several siblings. She had one sister, Mildred, and three brothers, Phillips, James, and William. Mildred was six years younger than Helen. Phillips was 11 years younger than Helen. William was six years older than Helen. James was 20 years younger than Helen. She loved her family and they were always very important to her throughout her life. To me, Helen Keller is the most inspirational person in history.
There were so many things in her life that could have held her back from doing everything that she wanted. But she never let them get her down. Even as someone who couldn’t see or hear anything around her, she lived in this world with a grace that will live forever. Her beliefs were so strong and she changed the world forever. As Lister Hill said in Helen’s eulogy, "She will live on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of the woman who showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and
faith."
Helen Keller, against all odds, became a mouthpiece for many causes in the early to mid-twentieth century. She advocated for causes such as building institutions for the blind, schools for the deaf, women’s suffrage and pacifism. When America was in the most desperate of times, her voice stood out. Helen Keller spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York raising her voice in protest of America’s decision to join the World War. The purpose of this paper will analyze the devices and methods Keller used in her speech to create a good ethos, pathos, and logos.
At first she was a little confused but then began to be more patient. The Character arc changes throughout the story in very slight ways. At first the narrator sounds playful and childish. However, getting towards the end of the story, the narrator becomes more patient and a little more mature.
Helen then dedicated her life to improving the world. She delivered many lectures to improve the conditions for the blind and deaf-blind. She spoke out for women's rights and pacifism. She spoke in over 25 countries bringing new hope to many people. She spoke against World War I and her pay from lectures declined because of her stand. During World War II she visited military personnel who had become blind and/or deaf because of injuries. She also spent a lot of time raising funds for organizations working with the deaf and blind. Helen also wrote several books concerning her life, her religious beliefs, and her teacher Anne Sullivan.
Helen Keller was a true American hero, in my eyes. She was born June, 27 1880 in Tuscumbia Alabama. Helens father was in the confederate army, and so was her grandfather on her mother’s side. Coincidentally one of Helen's ancestors was the first to teach to the deaf in Zurich; Helen did refer back to this in one of her autobiography. Helen was born able to see and hear, but by 19 months she became very ill. This disease was described by doctors as an acute congestion of her stomach and brain. Some doctors guessed that this might be Scarlett fever or meningitis, but never completely knew. Helen could communicate with the cooks daughter with a couple of made up hand signs, and by age seven she could communicate with her family using sixty different signs. Helen Keller’s mother eventually took her to different physicians, which in the end leaded her to Perkins Institute for the Blind. This is where she met her new teacher and 49 yearlong companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan’s teaching method was to spell the out on Helen's hand, her first word given to her was doll. This was very frustrati...
“Don’t stop believin’!” Helen Keller proved this statement by The Beatles to be true when she showed everyone in the world that she could do whatever she wanted to do if she just believed and didn’t stop. One of Keller’s famous quotes was “Believe. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or open a new heaven to the human spirit.” Keller grew up deaf and blind from the age of 19 months old. Keller’s parents met Anne Sullivan through Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and Anne became Helen’s teacher. Anne taught Helen an extreme amount of words and taught her how to read and write. Keller studied for 24 years and eventually graduated from Radcliffe College with honors. Keller became a great role model for the younger human race and taught them that they can fight through anything no matter what condition they are in.
1. Can you imagin not being able to see here or speaking. That was the world in witch Helen Keller lived,
Then, at nineteen months, Helen was stricken with a terrible illness, most likely Scarlet Fever, leaving her blind and deaf. Yet, through her brown eyes shined curiosity in the world around her. Helen, even with disabilities, always wanted to learn more, often using motions to explain something in a way to communicate with others, making her own “language”, by the age of seven she invented more than sixty signs to communicate with
Anne Sullivan had a very hard childhood, just like Helen. She was born to Irish immigra...
First, one must have the five senses; taste, smell, hear, see, and feel. Yes, these are physical aspects, however, these senses are what any human needs to be, human. For example, the human body needs to be able to taste. It must ingest food, and the food must appeal to a decent taste. A human must also be able to smell, so one may smell a poisonous gas, delicious food, or any other stench that may linger in the air. To be able to hear, enables the human to hear danger or a noise that appeals to them. When seeing, danger is also noted as well as the care of others. When one feels, the object that is being felt may make the person feel comfortable. Not only the sense of touching, but feelings.
Helen was courageous, she later on wrote a book and an article for the Socialist Journal called (The Story of My Life) and (The Masses), in the book she is talking about her whole life and what she had to go through it all with no sense of hear and sight. Her troubles on learning and how everyone doubted her learning disabilities. She sure proved them wrong. While in the article she talks about World War 1. That no one should be segregated regardless of race, color, creed, or sex.
Helen became a famous author and speaker. She also showed that blind people can do anything like any normal person can do. While she was a child she learned how to speak with her hands, she spelled water while water was falling into her hand. She was also famous for 8 years , she also read in braille and she was the deepest meaning alive as a
My Later Life 1929,Journal 1938,and Let Us Have Faith 1940. These books that she wrote inspired so many kids that suffered from hearing and seeing disability. Keller’s writing reveals her interest in the beauty of things taken for granted by those who can see and
Do you ever sit and wonder about the world, how it is possible? Do you ever wonder about time and its vastness, yet its microscopic presence? Do you ever wonder about how people created the English language, or any other language? Do you ever wonder about, well, just about anything (of course you do)? All of this is possible because of the concrete and the abstract worlds.
After a life-changing event like becoming blind and deaf, most people would probably give up on most of their dreams and goals. Helen Keller was strong, determined, and did not allow her disabilities control her life. She went on to college, got involved in politics and other famous causes, and inspired other disabled children by her accomplishments. She was married to Peter Fagan before her parents made them divorce, and even after she died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, her legacy still remains (www.nndb.com). Helen Keller will forever be remembered as one of the most influential people of the 20th century.
The five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell are all sensations throughout the human body. Sensation is the involvement of sensory receptors as well as the central nervous system in order to allow us to experience outside stimuli. The system that allows us to experience sensation is the sensory system.