Hellen Keller:The story of my life Important Question and Answers

These are important question answers for SA 1

SA 2 Question answers are HERE

Q1.Write a character sketch of Helen Keller.

Ans. Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia in Alabama She belonged to a family with long, chequered history. She was a live ly, curious and assertive child. She felt at ease in the rose-bower of her house. Unfortunately, an illness rendered her blind and de af when she was nineteen months old. But that did not diminish her viour and zest for life. She evolved her own signs to communicate with others. She learnt ma ny small things like folding and putting away the clean clothes coming from the laundry, greeting the guests, playing with Martha, a little coloured girl, and he r pet dog Belle. When Miss Sullivan came to her life, everything cha nged for her. She was amazingly quick to follow whatever she taught her. She learnt individual words, and sentences, and learnt to read. Through Miss Sullivan she devel oped love for nature. She began to love every object and creature in the world of nature. She had natural love and affection for her parents and the highest of regard s for her teacher and lifelong companion Miss Sullivan. In spite of disabilities, Helen Keller never showed timidity. She was a daring and adventurous girl. She was gifted with exceptional s ense of small and touch. Whatever Helen learnt was through her exceptional s ense of touch. She had ability to cope up with her disabilities and to live an act ive life.

Q2.How can you say that Helen read and studied out of doors
Ans.Usually students read and study in their classrooms . But for Helen Keller whole nature was her classroom. Most of her learning took place out of doors. This way she learnt more about the world around her. She was clo se to the nature. Generally students read with books but Helen Keller read by u sing her sense of smell and touch. In a way, nature became her teacher, guide a nd philosopher. She learnt from nature that everything has beauty of its own. Miss Sullivan provided her practical knowledge of everything. Helen read Geography by ra ised maps in clay. She touched and felt the opening up of a plant. The study of ta dpole made her understand that for creatures their natural habitats are indispensa ble. So Helen learnt from life itself and in this learning her teacher played an exemplar y role. It was she who made her education appears like a game, a play. Helen learnt more out of doors and nature herself unfolded the book of life for her.

Q3. How did Helen respond to the entire controversy? What did it help her realise? Do you think she was guilty of plagiarism as charged?
Ans.Helen weathered her first public controversy at the age of 12, in the winter of 1892. After learning to speak Helen wrote a short story “ The Frost King”. She felt a sense of joy in the composition. She related the story to her teacher, Mr. Anagnos. She sent the story to Mr. Anagnos and he published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports. Helen was very happy. But her happiness di dn’t last for long. It was discovered that a story similar to “The Frost King” called “The Frost Fairies” by Miss Margaret T. Canby had appeared in a book called, Bi rdie and His Friends. The two stories were similar in content and it was presumed that Miss Canby’s story had been read to Helen and that her story was - plagiar ism. Helen was astonished and grieved. She was questioned and cross-questioned by a court of investigation. Although Mr. Anagnos believed her at first, he was eventually convinced that Helen had deceived him and their friendship came to an en d. When Helen realised that she had inadvertently plagiarised the story, she was de eply regretful. Earlier also Helen persisted on confusing the words mug and water. Miss Sullivan renewed her effort to make her distinguish between the words. Helen became impatient. She seized the new doll and dashed it up on the floor. After doing this, she felt delighted. The cause of her impatience was in fragments and she was happy to inflict injury on her enemy. Neither sorrow nor reg ret followed her passionate outburst.

Q4.Write a brief character sketch of Anne Sullivan.
Ans.Miss Sullivan, Helen’s teacher arrived on March 3, 1887 and at that time Helen was six years and nine months old. Anne’s arrival broug ht life and enlightenment to Helen. She came to teach Helen and to take her from ignorance to light. Her constant support and undying encouragement made Helen Keller a success. Due to illness Helen lost her hearing and seeing faculties. It was really difficult to teach a blind and deaf person because neither he/she can hear nor can watch the speaker’s face. But Miss Sullivan worked hard and succeeded in teaching Helen. She took Helen from darkness to light, from isolation to friendship, co mpanionship, knowledge and love. Sullivan was Helen’s guide, teacher, preacher, frie nd and everything. She taught Helen the fundamental things like love, nature and life. Helen was just lifeless till her teacher had not arrived. Miss Sullivan was the embo diment of love and passion. She taught Helen how to communicate. Miss Sullivan is a true and ideal teacher. She taught each and every subject to Helen. She made He len independent. Like a mother, Miss Sullivan loved and cared Helen. She did an alm ost impossible work to teach a deaf and blind child. Helen got identity only becau se of her teacher. Miss Sullivan proved that a teacher has paramount role in a stude nt’s life.

Q5.Helen learnt a new lesson that “Nature wages open w ar against her children and under softest touch hides treacherous claws”. How did Hel en learn that lesson?
Ans. Benevolent aspect of nature thrilled her, but soon she learnt that nature could be ferocious also. Once she and her teacher were retur ning from a walk. The weather grew warm and humid. They stood under the cool shad e of a tree. With her teacher’s help Helen sat amidst the branches. Miss Sullivan w ent to fetch lunch and Helen was all alone. Suddenly, weather changed and a thunders torm was imminent. Helen felt paralysed and frightened and she wanted to get down from the tree. She clung to the branch with all her might as the tree swayed and st rained. The branches lashed about her. She felt as if she would fall and at tha t very moment Miss Sullivan came and helped her down. Helen had learnt a new lesson that “Nature wages open war against her children and under softest touch hides treacherous claws”. She learnt a great lesson that life is not always pleasant and o ne should be prepared for the risks and stakes also.

Q6.Why was learning speech an extremely challenging ta sk for Helen? What motivated her to persevere in spite of repeated failures?
Ans.Learning speech was an extremely challenging task f or Helen because she could not hear. Helen had always been capable of making noise s and would often do so. She recounts that she had been learning to talk before her illness but couldn’t do so as a result of her loss of hearing. The only word she co uld recall was ‘water’ which she pronounced as “wa - wa”. She wanted to learn to spe ak the way hearing people do. Her thoughts beat up like birds against the wind. S he moved her lips but nothing tangible happened. Even her friends discouraged her , but she did not lose heart. The story of Ragnhild Kaata motivated her to persev ere in spite of repeated failures. Helen learned about Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blin d girl in Norway, who had learned to talk. Miss Fuller offered to be Helen’s teacher. Helen’s strong determination and hard work overcame all the hurdle s and she achieved what she wanted. She learnt to speak because of her, her tea chers - Miss Sullivan and Miss Fuller’s - hard work.

Q8. What makes Helen jealous of the newly born baby? E xplain her reaction to see the newly born baby in her house.
Ans. Like any other child, Helen was possessive and mood y. The advent of Helen’s younger sister Mildred divided the attention of her mother. She could not tolerate her mother’s indulgence towards her little sister. Her little sister sat in her mother’s lap constantly, where Helen used to sit. Raw and in nocent heart of Helen could not tolerate it. She held Mildred responsible for this division of love, care and attention. This made her agitated and angry. Helen used to put her doll, Nancy in a cradle to sl eep. Once she found Mildred sleeping in the cradle of her doll, this made her f urious. Out of anger and pent up emotions, she overturned the cradle. Mildred was ab out to fall down on the floor when her mother caught her and saved her from being seriously injured. The reaction on the part of Helen is natural. Later on, she realised her mistake and with the passage of time she became friendly with her si ster.

Q9.What was the impulse that ultimately enabled Helen to speak? How did she learn how to speak?
Ans.The impulse to speak had always been strong within Helen. She used to make noises, keeping one hand on her throat while the ot her hand felt the movements of lips. She was pleased with anything that made noise. She used to feel the motion of her mother’s lips and yearned to move her lips too to p roduce sound. She tried a lot to speak but she couldn’t do it. She was entirely depe ndent on the manual alphabet. It created a gap in her life. A sense of narrowness gr ipped her. This feeling began to agitate her violently. She persisted in using her l ips and voice. Her friends feared that this would lead her to disappointment. But Hel en persisted to speak. In 1890, Mrs. Lamson, a teacher, told her about Rag nhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway, who had actually been taught to speak. H elen saw a beam of light and determined that she would also speak

Q9.How did Helen learn to read? Describe Helen’s long process of learning?
Ans. Learning to read was an important step in Helen’s e ducation. Miss Sullivan gave her slips of cardboard on which were printed words in r aised letters. Helen soon learnt that each printed word stood for an object, an act or a quality. She took slips of paper which represented, for example, “doll”, “is”, “on”, “bed” and placed each name on its object. She put her doll on the bed with the words, ‘is, on, bed’ arranged beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words. One day she pinned the word “girl” on her pinnafore and stood in the wardrobe. On the she lf she arranged the words “is in, wardrobe”. This game delighted her. Miss Sullivan a nd Helen played it for hours at a time. From the printed slip Helen moved to the prin ted book. She took her “Reader for Beginners” and hunted for the words she knew. W hen she found them her joy knew no bound. Thus, she began to read. Helen’s education is a long process. At first Helen learnt to name every object she touched. At first she made little inquiry about a n ew thing learnt. As her knowledge of things grew, she would return again and again to the same subject to gather further information. Sometimes, a new word revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on her mind. Once she broug ht some flowers for her teacher. Miss Sullivan spelled into her hand, “I lo ve Helen.” Helen asked “what is love?” For a long time she failed to understand wha t love really was. One day she was making many mistakes in stringing beads of diff erent sizes in symmetrical groups. For an instant she tried to think how she s hould have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched her forehead and spelled, “Th ink”. In a flash she learnt that the word was the name of the that was going on in h er head. Thus, she learnt about an abstract idea. Thus, her education, a long proce ss, continued.

Q10.Why cannot a deaf and blind person converse properly? How did Miss Sullivan help Helen to converse properly?
AnsNatural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf chi ld. The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the facilities of convers ation. A deaf and a blind person cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, withou t assistance, go up and down the full range of tones that give significance to words , nor can they watch the expression of the speaker’s face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says. So, the deaf child does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily i ntercourse. Helen’s teacher realised the problems of Helen and was determined to supply the kinds of stimulus she lacked. This she did by repea ting to Helen as far as possible. Miss Sullivan used to speak as well as spell the wo rds to Helen.