Summary of the novel the story of my life chapter1 to 14
Answers
Chapter-1
Helen was born on 27th June, 1880 in Tuscumbia, a
little town of northern Alabama in USA. Nineteen months after her birth, Helen
fell ill which left her with visual and hearing disabilities.
Chapter 2
Helen could not communicate with anyone except her own sign
language until she became seven years old. Helen’s disabilities often annoyed her and she
lost her temper quite often. She would often kick her nurse Ella. Martha
Washington, the coloured girl was her childhood companion. Together they had
lots of fun doing mischief and pranks. Helen got herself in many precarious
situations owing to her inability to see and hear. Helen felt jealous of her
sister Mildred and even threw her once out of her cradle.
Chapter 3
Helen’s parents had an intense wish to educate their
disabled daughter. Helen’s mother came to know about Laura Bridgeman who had
similar disabilities as Helen and who had been successfully taught. Helen’s
father took Helen to Baltimore to see an eye-specialist with the hope of
getting Helen treated. She enjoyed the trip and behaved herself throughout the
journey. Dr. Chisholm expressed his inability to treat Helen. However, he
suggested the family to meet Dr. Graham Bell who could help them. The family
met Alexander Graham Bell who recommended the Kellers hire a teacher to help
their special daughter.
Chapter 4
Anne Sullivan, a young teacher with her own vision problems,
arrived at the Keller home in early March of 1887.She started teaching Helen
manual alphabet to which Helen did not respond encouragingly. Nothing clicked
until a few weeks after her arrival when she tried to teach Helen the
difference between “mug” and “water.”
Chapter 5
After Helen understood that things had names- and she could
learn those names from her teacher’s finger-spelling- her vocabulary grew. Then,
during the summer of 1887, she learned about the power of nature when a storm
came upon her while she was outside…on her own.
Chapter 6
Once she recognized things and actions had names, Helen
needed to comprehend abstract subjects. Trying to solve a problem, she felt her
teacher’s hand on her forehead while Miss Sullivan emphatically spelled “THINK.”
“In a flash,” Helen recognized that’s what she was doing- thinking.
Chapter 7
In her early days of learning, Helen worked outside with
Anne. It seemed like play since she had not yet commenced formal lessons. Helen
began to put words together in sentences, like “doll is on the bed.” The first
book she actually read was “Reader for Beginners.”
Chapter 8
At the age of seven, Helen Keller experienced her first real
Christmas. She gave, as well as received, presents. She was even invited to
participate with the local school children on Christmas Eve. Excited about what
was to come, she was the first to awake on Christmas morning.
Chapter 9
Helen visited the Perkins
Institute for the Blind in May of 1888. For the first time in her life, she met
the other children who used the manual alphabet. It was, she said, like coming
home to her own country, she toured places around Boston and especially loved Plymouth
Rock (because she could touch it).
Chapter 10
After his visit to Boston, Helen
and her teacher took a Cape-Cod holiday during which the child first
experienced the ocean. When a wave pulled her underwater, she was very
frightened. Also puzzled, she asked Anne Sullivan: “Who put salt in the water?”
Chapter 11
Vacationing with her family in the
mountains near Tuscumbia, Helen experienced the joys of childhood: riding a
pony, hunting for permissions and exploring in the woods. Then… she, her sister
Mildred and Miss Sullivan got lost! How would they find their way back?
Chapter 12
As a child of South, Helen had not
experienced snow before the winter of 1889. While in the North, she played
outside in the cold weather. Her favorite winter sport was tobogganing- which
she was able to do with help.
Chapter 13
Even though she’d made great
progress, Helen was frustrated because she could not speak. She’d read about a
deaf-blind Norwegian girl, named Ragnhild Kaata, who had learned to do what
Helen longed for. At the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Sarah Fuller worked
with her. Helen’s first spoken sentence was “It is warm.”
Chapter 14
When she was 11, Helen wrote a
story she thought was her own, and “The Frost King” was published by the
director of the Perkins Institute. She had not recalled someone had once read “The
Frost Fairies” (by Margaret T. Canby) to her. Eight people interrogated Helen, about
her plagiarized story. It was not an easy time for the child.