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What impression do you form of Helen as she learns to cope with her deafness and blindness? What efforts do Helen's parents take to make her life...

Helen has a lot of frustration at the beginning, since she cannot communicate in great detail with her family or with other people. We read about this time in Chapters 2-4. She acts out and misbehaves a great deal, which she freely admits here. She learns how to turn keys in locks, and she locks people in rooms. She dumps her baby sister out of her doll’s cradle when she realizes she is sleeping in it. Sometimes she breaks out in tears in frustration. Some would consider her to be a very bad girl who always wants to get her own way. But she also plays well with Martha, the cook’s daughter, and with Belle, the dog. She likes to decorate and to get ready for Christmas. Hers is as normal as a country farm life can be, given the circumstances. At the same time, her parents seek out specialists to help Helen learn to communicate. They first go to Baltimore to Dr. Chisholm, and then to Washington DC to meet Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. Finally they reach the Perkins Institution in Boston. These are the people who arrange for teacher Anne Sullivan to come to the Keller home in March 1887. She is the one who unlocks the mystery of communication for Helen. Their relationship changes both of their lives forever.

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