Skip to main content

Summarize The Story of My Life by Helen Keller.

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller is an autobiography, which was published when the author was in her early twenties.  In it, Helen told her life story from birth until she was in college.  Helen began by giving family background about her parents and ancestors.  She told about her early life, before she became deaf and blind due to an illness.  She detailed the facts about her illness.  Helen described her vague memories after she lost her sight and hearing:



I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different.



Helen briefly wrote about what her life was like as a little girl, before Miss Sullivan came to be her teacher.  During this time, Helen struggled with frustration because she longed to be like everyone else.  She knew that she was different.  Her frustrations were manifested in fits of rage.


Desperate, Helen's parents contacted many experts.  Finally, they met with the famous Alexander Graham Bell.  He suggested that they contact Mr. Anagnos, who was in charge of the Perkins Institution for the Blind.  Through Mr. Anagnos, Mr. and Mrs. Keller were able to connect with Miss Sullivan.  The young woman came to Alabama to become Helen's teacher.


Miss Sullivan attempted to reach Helen by communicating with her.  Helen could not make the connection between the letters spelled into her palm by Miss Sullivan and the objects they were describing.  Finally, one day Miss Sullivan's teachings broke through.  Helen finally understood.  This changed her life.  Helen described this moment as her "soul's sudden awakening."  


Helen was a fast learner, and soon she knew how to spell and read using raised letters.  She left home with Miss Sullivan to attend school.  She even learned how to speak.  Throughout the first twenty years of Helen's life, she did a great deal of traveling.  Miss Sullivan, her constant companion, traveled with her.  Helen made friends wherever she went, whether it was in New York or in Nova Scotia.  Friendship was important to Helen.  She also loved to learn new things and to spend time in nature.


Helen eventually was accepted into Radcliffe College.  She was happy and relieved.  Helen ended her autobiography when she was still a student at Radcliffe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more