EARLY LIFE OF HELEN KELLER BEFORE HER TEACHER CAME TO HER LIFE
Answers
Before Helen's teacher came into her life and revealed to her that everything had a name, and subsequently opening the world to her, she called herself a "phantom," a being in a non-person like state.Here is a quote on that, "An excerpt from Teacher, which was written by Keller in 1955 as a 75-year-old woman depicts a lost soul angry at the world. From 19 months until the age of seven, Keller referred to herself as "no-person" and phantom. Keller was dissociated from the person that she was and did not feel as if she existed or that she was a real person after she was plunged into darkness and silence. "A sorrier situation never confronted a young woman on fire with a noble purpose." Phantom's parents interfered with any discipline that Sullivan tried to give her, so Sullivan took Keller to a cottage house near Ivy Green. They rearranged furniture so that Keller would not recognize it. Keller recalls that it even smelled different than the cottage house that she remembered"
And another description:
"Born a beautiful healthy child in 1880, Helen Keller was struck at nineteen months by a mysterious illness that left her totally deaf and blind. The toddler just beginning to talk reverted nearly to the state of a seriously wounded, untamed animal. She also became Sleeping Beauty. This isolated creature survived five years of frustration and indulgence within her despairing family before finding release."
Hope it was useful.