HELEN KELLER Ch 8-13
1. Why did Helen call Boston "the city of kind hearts"?
Helen's experiences with kind people in Boston have greatly influenced her thoughts
about the city. Because of the people, Helen will forever equate Boston with kindness,
welcome and compassion. The main example of someone who embodies the spirit of
such welcoming hospitality would be Mr William Endicott. Helen tells us that she was
thinking of Mr Endicott when she called Boston, ‘The City Of Kind Hearts’. Mr Endicott
opens up his house to Helen and talks to her as if they are great friends who have
always enjoyed each other's company.
Another example is that of Mr Anagnos (director of the Perkins Institution For The
Blind in Boston). When Helen's father writes to request a teacher for Helen, we are
told that Mr. Anagnos answers with a 'kind letter' filled with 'the comforting assurance
that a teacher had been found.'
In May 1888, Helen gets a chance to visit the Perkins Institution For The Blind. Her joy
is complete when the children greet her with eagerness and enthusiasm. She feels so
thoroughly at home in Boston that she begins to regard Boston ‘as the beginning and
the end of creation’.
2. What caused Helen to take dive in the cold water? What happened after she plunged into
cold water?
Helen was delighted to know that she and her teacher would spend their vacation at
Brewster, on Cape God. Her mind was full of prospective joys and the wonderful
stories she had heard about the sea. She had always lived far inland. She also read a
big book called ‘Our World’ a description of the ocean which filled her with wonder
and intense desire to touch the mighty sea. All of these caused Helen to plunge into
the sea water without any fear. She was enjoying it until her foot struck against a rock
and the water rushed over her head. She found nothing to hold on to as there was
nothing except water and sea weeds. However, she was fortunate that waves threw
her back on the shore where her teacher picked her up in her arms.
3. Describe Helen’s First Christmas after Miss Sullivan’s arrival.
The first Christmas after Miss Sullivan’s arrival was great for Helen. Everyone in her
family planned surprises for Helen. She was also preparing her surprises with her
teacher. They kept up a guessing game which taught Helen more about the use of
language. They played the guessing game every evening which grew more and more
exciting as Christmas approached. Helen was invited by the Tuscumbia school
children to their decorated Christmas tree. She danced and jumped around the tree in
an excitement. She gave gifts to other children. She also wanted to know what she
was to receive on that occasion. In the morning, when she got up she found a lot of
gifts for her. She was most delighted by her teacher’s gift which was a canary. She
enjoyed Christmas a lot.
4. Describe Helen Keller’s stay at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston.
It was Alexander Graham Bell who advised Helen’s parents to contact the Perkins
Institute for Blind for her education. It was the institute where Laura Bridgman, a deaf
and blind child had been educated. It was located in South Boston. Michael
Anaganos, the director, asked Anne Sullivan to become Keller’s instructor. Helen
made friends with the little blind children. It was a unique pleasure to talk with other
blind children in herown language. Until then she had been speaking through an
interpreter like a foreigner. All the eager and loving children gathered round her and
joined heartily in her frolics. They could read the books with their fingers. They were
so happy and contented that she lost all sense of pain in the pleasure of their
companionship. With the blind children she felt thoroughly at home in her new
environment.
5. How did Helen spend her mornings at the Fern Quarry one summer?
One summer, Helen had her pony at Fern Quarry. She had named him ‘Black Beauty’
because of his strong resemblance to the one in the book she had just read. She
spent the happiest hours on his back accompanied by her teacher. On mornings
when she did not want to ride, she and her teacher would go rambling in the woods
after breakfast and returned with armfuls of laurel, goldenrod, ferns and swamp-
flowers.
Sometimes she went with Mildred and her little cousins to hunt for persimmons in the
leaves and grass but did not eat them. She liked their fragrance. They also went
nutting and she helped them open the chestnut burrs and break the shells of hickory
nuts and walnuts.
At the foot of the mountain was the railroad and the children watched the trains whiz
by.
6. How does Helen describe the snowstorm?
The snowflakes dropped silently and softly from the airy height to the earth. In the
morning no feature of the landscape was recognizable. All roads were hidden, not a
single landmark was visible. In the evening, a wind from the north east sprang up and
the snowflakes moved around in a furious melee. The family sat around the fire and
told merry tales and frolicked and forgot that they were shut off from the outside
world. During the night, the fury of the wind increased and filled them with vague
terror.
The rafters creaked and stained. The branches of the trees rattled and beat against
the windows.
The storm subsided after three days. The sun shone upon the area and piles of snow
lay scattered everywhere. Before these drifts could shrink there was another
snowstorm.
7. How does the author explain the use of the manual alphabet to speak to?
Helen explains the use of the manual alphabet in speaking to those who are blind and
deaf. Because it seems to puzzle people who do not know people like her.
One who reads or talks to her spells with his hand, using the single hand manual
alphabet generally employed by the deaf. She places her hand on the hand of the
speaker, very lightly so that the speaker’s finger movements are not hindered. The
position of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see. She says that she does not feel
each letter any more than we see each letter separately when we read.
Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of her friends spell
rapidly—about as fast as an expert writes on a typewriter. The mere spelling is no
more a conscious act than it is in writing.
8. Describe Helen Keller’s journey in learning to speak.
The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within Helen.
Before she lost her sight and hearing, she was fast learning to talk but after her
illness she made many sounds because the need of exercising her vocal organs was
imperative.
Although Miss Sullivan began to teach her, she was dissatisfied with the means of
communication and felt a sense of restraint and began to agitate her.
One day, Mrs. Lamson, one of Laura Bridgman's teachers, came to see Helen, and
told her of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who had been taught to
speak.
Helen was filled with eagerness and did not rest until her teacher took her to Miss
Sarah Fuller. The lady offered to teach Helen herself. Through Miss Fuller's method
she learnt six elements of speech in an hour. Miss Fuller gave her eleven lessons and
she uttered her first connected sentence, "It is warm." True, they were broken and
stammering syllables but they were human speech.
Due to Miss Sullivan's genius and untiring perseverance and her own laboured
practice night and day, Helen progressed towards natural speech.
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