The Story of My Life Ch 5,6,7

The Story of My Life Ch 5,6,7

1. What instances lead you to believe that Helen showed a normal child’s

fascination for the world around it? Why was Helen gripped by a nameless

fear and how did she know it? What helped her overcome her fear?

All through the summer Helen was alive and eager to discover the world

around her. She explored with her hands and learnt the name of every

object that she touched. As she learned about these things her confidence

grew and she felt a kinship with the world. Miss Sullivan took her across the

fields to where men were preparing the earth for the seed. She learnt how

nature was generous and kind. She learned how the sun and rain made

plants grow. How birds build their nests and live and thrive, how the squirrel

the der and the lion and every other creature find food and shelter.

She linked herself with nature and found great joy in spending hours

exploring and enjoying its beauty. One day this feeling snapped when she

learnt that nature could be cruel too. She was left stranded on a cherry

tree on a stormy day in heavy rain. She was so terror stricken with this

event that she stopped thinking of climbing any tree thereafter. After a

long time it was the sweet fragrance of the mimosa tree that attracted her.
She climbed the tree until she reached a seat at a great height from the

ground. She sat there for a long time thinking of beautiful things and

dreaming of things to come.

2. What did Helen need to learn so that she could communicate? What was

the key of all languages to her?

Helen acquired a key to all languages and by using the key she was

impatient to learn languages. An average child is constantly exposed to

language. From the time she was in the womb until almost the age of two,

Helen understood what is being said long before she could use many

words to communicate with others. Helen had a lot of catching up to do. Her teacher saturated her mind with language just as a parent does with

an infant. Sullivan exposed Helen to the language through constant talking

and word games of her own invention like ‘Where’s your nose?” daily

immersion in language allowed Helen to make leaps in her thinking which

are necessary to function at a high level of intelligence.

the nore she knew of the world the more her eagerness to learn increase.

She worked harder and harder to learn more and more words. Helen

needed to move from knowing the names of concrete things and actions,

to knowing how to recognize and communicate abstractions.

3. How did Anne Sullivan explain the meaning of love to Helen? How did she

talk to Helen?

Anne Sullivan had to work for a long time, before Helen could understand

the meaning of the word ‘love’. Anne Sullivan told her that love was

something like the clouds in the sky before the sun came out. She further

explained that one could not touch the clouds, but one could feel the rain

and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth were to have it after a

hot day. Similarly, one could not touch love; one could feel the sweetness

that love poured into everything. Without love one could not be happy nor

want to play.

4. How was Helen able to learn some of the basics of geography? How did

Helen practice her math skills?

Helen and her teacher often walked to Keller’s landing by the Tennessee

River. Though she did not realise it, Helen began to learn geography on

those walks. Helen built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes and dug

river-beds all for fun and never dreamed that she was learning a lesson.

Mathematics was the only subject that Helen did not like. Miss Sullivan

tried to teach her to count by stringing beads in groups, and by arranging

kindergarten straws she learned to add and subtract. She never had

patience to arrange more than five or six groups at a time. When she

accomplished this her conscience was at rest for the day.