10th std The Story of My Life

The Story of My Life ( Chapter 14-23)

Answer the following questions in 200—250 words.

1. How was Helen’s pleasure at writing a story turn into disgrace and bitterness?
At the age of 11, Helen wrote a story- ‘The Frost King’ and sent it to Mr. Anagnos at
Perkins Institute. He promptly published it in one of Perkins Instituition reports. It was
discovered that a similar story had appeared before Helen was born in a book called
‘Birdie and his Friends’ by Margaret Canby. The two stories were similar in thought and
language. It was evident that Miss Canby’s story had been read to Helen; hence she was
accused of plagiarism. Mr. Anagnos turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of love and
innocence by Helen because he thought he had been deceived. He suspected that Miss
Sullivan and Helen had deliberately stolen the bright thoughts of another and imposed
them on him to win his admiration. He put Helen before a court of investigation that
consisted of teachers and officers of the Institution. Miss Sullivan was not allowed into
the room. Helen was questioned and cross questioned. It seemed to Helen as if the
judges were determined to force her to acknowledge that ‘Miss Canby’s story had been
read to her. In every question the judges asked, Helen felt their doubt and suspicion.
Helen was distressed and traumatized by the incident.

2. Miss Sullivan and Helen tried to investigate the truth behind the ‘The Frost King’ episode.
What did the investigations reveal?
Miss Sullivan did not remember reading the story – ‘The Frost Fairies’ to Helen and
Helen couldn’t remember hearing the story. Miss Sullivan’s investigations on the
plagiarism matter revealed that even though she had not read out the story to Helen,
Mrs. Sophia C Hopkins had read out the story – ‘Birdie and her Friends’ to Helen when
she had spent the summer in Brewster. Miss Sullivan had been on vacation at that time.
The stories had no meaning for Helen at that time but the strange words amused her
and left an indelible mark in her mind.
Helen read the story - ‘The Frost Fairies’ and found that she had used Miss Canby’s
ideas. She found Miss Canby’ ideas in letters that she wrote, specially in one letter to Mr.
Anagnos, which had words and sentiments exactly like those of the book. These
showed that her mind was saturated with the story. This habit of assimilating what
pleased her and giving it out again as her own appeared in much of her early
correspondence and first attempts at writing. During the troubled time, Helen received
many messages of love and sympathy.
Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Someday you will write a great story out of your own
head, that will be a comfort and help to many."
But Helen was unable to fulfill the kind prophecy. She never played with words again
for the mere pleasure of the game. In fact, she had ever since been tortured by the fear
that what she wrote was not her own.

3. Describe Helen’s experience at the World’s Fair.
Helen and Miss Sullivan visited the World’s Fair in Summer along with Dr. Alexander
Graham Bell where her thousand childish fancies became beautiful realities.
She was given permission to touch many of the exhibits by Mr. Higginbotham,
President of the World’s Fair. Her visit to the Midway Plaisance reminded her of Arabian
Nights. She saw India with the curious bazaars and the various Gods, the land of
Pyramids and the lagoons of Venice. She went on board a Viking ship and examined the
model of Santa Maria.
At the Cape of Good Hope exhibit she learnt about the process of mining diamonds.
Wherever possible she touched the machinery while it was in motion.
Dr. Bell explained to her the scientific principles of technological exhibits. They also
visited the anthropological department and she learned more about the progress of
man than she had heard or read.
All the experiences gathered by Helen at the World’s Fair added a great many new
terms to her vocabulary. In the three weeks that Helen spent at the Fair, she took a long
leap from the little child's interest in fairy tales and toys to the appreciation of the real
in the workaday world.

4. Why was it easy for Helen to learn German faster than French at the Wright – Humason School
for the deaf in New York?
The Wright – Humason School for the deaf was chosen especially so that Helen would
get the best training in vocal culture and lip-reading. In addition to this, she studied
arithmetic, physical geography, French and German.
The German teacher could use the manual alphabet, and after she had acquired a small
vocabulary, they talked together in German whenever they had a chance, and in a few
months Helen could understand almost everything the teacher said.
The French teacher did not know the manual alphabet, and was obliged to give
instructions orally. Helen could not read her lips easily; so her progress in French was
much slower than in German.
Helen’s progress in lip-reading and speech was not what her teacher and she had hoped
and expected Although they worked hard and faithfully, yet they did not quite reach
their goal. Helen supposed they had aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore
inevitable.

5.Why did Helen perform better in preliminary examinations than the Finals for Radcliffe?
Helen did not have the advantage at the finals that she got at the preliminary
examination.
During the preliminary examination, Mr. Gilman read the examination paper to her,
and she wrote the answers. He read out to her the answers which she wrote and if she
wanted any changes, he inserted the changes.
At Radcliffe no one read the papers to her after they were written. She did not have
the opportunity to correct errors unless she finished before the time was up. In that
she could only correct such mistakes that she could recall in the few minutes allowed,
and make notes of those corrections at the end of the paper.
Secondly, in the preliminaries, she offered subjects, some of which she was in a
measure familiar before her work in the Cambridge school. At the beginning of the
year she had passed examinations in English, History, French and German, which Mr.
Gilman gave her from previous Harvard papers.
Helen wrote her papers using a typewriter. She wrote the papers in a separate
examination hall otherwise the noise would disturb the other girls.

6. What system did Helen’s tutor follow? How did Helen like the system?
Mr. Keith gave lessons five times a week, in periods of about an hour for eight months.
He explained each time what she did not understand in the previous lesson, assigned
new work, and took home with him the Greek exercises which she had written during
the week on her typewriter, corrected them fully, and returned them to her.
Her preparation for college went on without interruption. She found it much easier
and pleasanter to be taught alone than to receive instruction in class. There was no
hurry, no confusion. Her tutor had plenty of time to explain what she did not
understand, so she did better work than she ever did in school.
She still found difficulty in mastering problems in mathematics But, Mr. Keith made
interesting. He succeeded in whittling problems small enough for Helen to grasp. He
kept her mind alert and eager, and trained it to reason clearly, and to seek conclusions
calmly and logically, instead of jumping wildly into space and arriving nowhere. He
was always gentle and forbearing, no matter how dull she might be.

7. What difficulties did Helen encounter while taking her final examinations for Radcliffe
college?
The college authorities did not allow Miss Sullivan to read the examination papers to
Helen. One of the instructors at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, who was a
stranger to her, was employed to copy the papers for her in American braille. The
braille worked in the languages, but difficulties arose in geometry and algebra.
She was familiar with all literary braille in common use—English, American, and New
York Point; but the various signs and symbols in geometry and algebra in the three
systems were very different, and she had used only the English braille in her algebra.
Mr. Keith and Helen went over to the college a little before the examination began,
and had the instructor explain more fully the American symbols yet Helen found the
braille confusing, and could not fix clearly in her mind what she was reading.
She could not see what she wrote on her typewriter. She had always done her work in
braille or in her head. Mr. Keith had relied too much on her ability to solve problems
mentally, and had not trained her to write examination papers. Her work was slow; she
had to read the examples over and over before she could form any idea of what to do.
The administrative board of Radcliffe did not understand the peculiar difficulties she
had to surmount. But, she had the consolation of knowing that she overcame them all.

8. What are the important lessons that Helen had learnt while at college? What was the chief
cause of obsessive fear or anxiety in college?
Helen had learnt many things that she would never have known had she not tried the
experiment of going to college. One of them is the precious science of patience, which
teaches us that we should take our education as we would take a walk in the country,
leisurely; our minds hospitably open to impressions of every sort. Such knowledge
floods the soul unseen with a soundless tidal wave of deepening thought. "Knowledge
is power." Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep
knowledge—is to know true ends from false and lofty things from low. To know the
thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs
of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a
heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
The examinations were the chief bugbears of her college life. Although she had faced
them many times and cast them down and made them bite the dust, yet they rise again
and threaten her until she felt her courage oozing out.

9.What is Helen’s opinion on ‘great poetry’?
Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter
than a responsive heart. She says that all those who analyze and make comments
on the great works of the poets must learn this simple truth! It is not necessary
that one should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its
grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine
poem. Her learned professors may have found greater riches in the great poems
than she shall ever find; but she is not avaricious. She is content that others
should be wiser than her. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge,
they cannot measure their enjoyment of great poems, nor can she. When she read
the finest passages of the Iliad, she is conscious of a soul-sense that lifts her above
the narrow, cramping circumstances of her life. Her physical limitations are
forgotten. Her world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of
the heavens are hers!

10. How did Helen learn to be content with her limitations?
Helen says that her life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of
the beautiful world. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and
she has learnt to be content with, whatever state she may be in.
Sometimes, a sense of isolation enfolds her like a cold mist as she sits alone and
waits at life's shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet
companionship but she cannot enter. She questions her fate but her tongue does
not utter the bitter words against it. The words fall back into her heart like unshed
tears. Silence sits upon her soul and then hope comes, smiles and whispers that
there is joy in self-forgetfulness. So she tries to make the light in others' eyes her
sun, the music in others' ears her symphony, the smile on others' lips her
happiness.

11. What aspects of city life trouble Helen?
Noise is the dominant sensation that Helen associates with the city because her
whole body is alive to the conditions about her. There are no visual scenes to
distract her as they do to those who can see. Hence, the noise becomes even more
pronounced.
The other aspect of city life that troubles Helen is to think that some people
should be content to live in fine houses and become strong and beautiful, while
others are condemned to live in dirty places. The children half-clad and underfed.
The existence of such people is an endless struggle, an immense disparity
between effort and opportunity.
She feels that the sun and the air are God's free gifts to all, but in city's dingy
alleys the sun does not shine and the air is foul. She wonders that if men leave the
city and return to woods and fields and simple, honest living then it would help
them to improve in mind and body.

12. What does Helen talk about in the last chapter of the book? What aspect of Helen’s
nature do we learn from it?
Helen wanted to enrich the concluding chapter of her autobiography with the
names of all those who have ministered to her happiness. She gratefully
acknowledged the help, gracious words, advice and support of the many people
she met. Some were well known while others were not. She says that the days
when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem are red letter days. Such
people give the healing touch to our irritations and worries just as the ocean feels
the mountain stream freshening its brine.
This brings out her open nature. She is not embarrassed to admit that shae owed a
lot in her life to the active involvement of many people in her life. She connected
with and established lasting relationships with people from diverse fields. She was
keen to learn from everyone whatever she could and whatever they were
prepared to teach her. She had the ability to attract people to her because of her
interest in life and the world around her. Her determination to overcome all
obstacles in her life is what drew people to her.