Question

the story of my life full summary by HELEN KELLER

Answer 1

THE STORY OF MY LIFE was written by Helen Keller in her early twenties. She was a student at Radcliffe Collage. Helen was a handicap child being deaf and blind. This books start with the earliest description of Helen memories when she was not blind or deaf. She became handicap at the age of nineteen months.
The story of my life is related to help and cry . Her first priority was her love towards tge language. She always recall her ability to speak and hear before she lost her abilities in order to awaken them again. Through books she always able to relate her thoughts with the outside world. The major emphasis was on the Sullivan to whom she thinks as her teachers . Communication with Helen is mostly done with the manual alphabets, lip reading with alphabets were also done. Before this book has published Helem already has published few articles and she was doing good in Radcliffe. Later in life Helen became a social activist. Sullivan in her life act as a interpreter as well as an additional speaker on educational methods.
The Story of my life is a lesson for most of the children. Keller was known as a noted author, speaker, political activist and advocating people for human rights not only with physical disabilities but those who have social problems to. Many of her later work were basically autobiographical whichnprovide power to individuals through lofe with hope. This story is the first chapter in that journey.

Hope this helps u and good luck

Answer 2

Helen Keller overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of deafness and blindness to become an influential lecturer and social activist. Keller has become, in American culture, an icon of perseverance, respected and honored by readers, historians, and activists. Her autobiography The Story of My Life, published in the United States in 1903, is still read today for its ability to motivate and reassure readers. In her time, Keller was a celebrity and the publication to her autobiography was met with enthusiasm. The book was generally well received, and Keller later wrote a follow-up called Midstream, My Later Life in which she tells what happened in the twenty-five years after the publication of The Story of My Life.

Keller began working on The Story of My Life while she was a student at Radcliffe College, and it was first published in installments in Ladies’ Home Journal. Helping her was an editor and Harvard professor named John Albert Macy, who later married Keller’s first teacher and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan. In the book Keller recounts the first twenty-two years of her life, from the events of the illness in her early childhood that left her blind and deaf through her second year at Radcliffe College. Prominent historical figures wander among the pages of The Story of My Life—She meets Alexander Graham Bell when she is only six and remains friends with him for years; she visits the acclaimed American poet John Greenleaf Whittier; and she exchanges correspondence with people like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Mrs. Grover Cleveland.

SUMMARY

I. Early Childhood: Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, a little town of Alabama in the United States of America. Her family originated in Switzerland. Her grandfather bought large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled there. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, had been a captain in the Confederate Army. She was born in a tiny house near the homestead. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. It was the favourite haunt of humming birds and insects. The old fashioned garden of “Ivy green” was the paradise of her childhood. The beginning of her life was very simple. The day she started walking, she was one year old. Those happy days did not last long. Then came the illness which closed her eyes and ears.

II. Illness that closed Keller’s Eyes and Ears: It was a mysterious disease. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought that she would not live. The fever left her as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. But the rejoice was short-lived. No one, not even the doctor knew that she would never see or hear again. Except for some fleeting memories, all seemed very unreal and like a nightmare. Her hands felt every object and observed every motion. She felt the need of some communication with others and began to make crude signs. A shake of head meant “No” and a nod meant “Yes”. A pull meant “come” and a push meant “go”. In those days, Martha Washington, the child of her cook was her constant companion. She understood her signs better than the others. Her desire to express herself grew. Her failure to make herself understood through limited signs upset her. Her parents were deeply grieved and upset. It was very difficult to teach a deaf and blind child. Her mother’s only hope came from Dickens’s “American Notes”. She had read his account of Laura Bridgman who had been educated inspite of being a deaf and blind child. This led them to meet Dr. Alexander Graham Bell who advised Keller’s father to contact Mr. Anagnos, Director of the Perkins Institute in Boston. Within a week came a kind letter from Mr. Anagnos. He gave assurance that a teacher had been found for Helen Keller.