“A blind and deaf girl could describe the objects of nature and the world around her like any other person”. Infer this line in context of “The Story of my Life”.
Answers
Helen was a very bright child, who had so much to express; however finding herself disabled frustrated her. Her outstanding ability was her willingness to learn. She had voracious passion for learning, knowledge and exploration. Like Wordsworth, she learnt to find solace in nature and its peaceful serenity. Her power of observation was commendable. How beautifully she has described the details of her observations! Even those with eyes and ears cannot describe as beautifully as she has done. Her unique power of vivid description is perceptible almost everywhere in the novel. How beautifully descriptive is the first line of the novel ‘It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist.’ Helen keeps amazing the readers whatever she describes. Be it her childhood pranks with Martha Washington, or her state like a rudderless ship in the mist of the sea before the arrival of Miss Sullivan, or the description of her pain during the Frost King incident or her elation at the World Fair, she creates a perfect image by her power to describe her experiences. One just wonders, how Helen, who was deprived of the power of seeing could and hearing delineate so beautifully the happenings, occurrences, and the natural phenomena, which the normal people with eyes and ears fail to put in words.