This scene has mythic power, as she discovers language, she is able to express herself and make a connection with others, a fundamental human need. The first 4 chapters are about her transition from the state of a feral child under the guidance of "teacher" who gives the unruly Hellen her first word "wha wha" (water). It is the primary source used in most of the films about her, by which she is most widely known, which is ironic since she can not see or hear. The Story of My Life (1903) is the "miracle worker" Hellen Keller's autobiography. It is not an issue at all that he is a man reading a woman's memoir. The reader has a sympathetic, pleasant voice, with an attractive accent. Helen Keller's composition is more brilliant and animate than anything being written today: "ideas that flit across the mental sky, shaped and tinted by capricious fancy." What kid preparing for college today would have the fortitude to learn French, German, and Latin first, not the mention geometry and other hard subjects? Even in her day, though, college was about learning more than thinking, which is a fault. It shows what a retrograde has happened since. The courses that a person had to take and the subjects that a person had to be proficient in before being accepted for college in her day is astonishing. I was in suspense about some allusions to the 'water of life' being made. Given the body's need for water, it is interesting that this was the word by which the light of language broke into her life. She confesses to liking the thought, for example, of "filling old skins of dogma with the new wine of love." The 'fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,' moreover, is the heresy that everyone is alright so long as they do good. It seems that Helen Keller was not a Christian, though, at least not when she wrote this memoir. The passage is a beautiful word of praise to her teachers. But the end of chapter seven will remind the Christian of the association he should feel with Jesus. There is not a lot of religion in the narrative. For example, how many of us would remember the smell of cloves from the breath of a horse? It is easier to understand why dogs are afraid of thunder by how Helen Keller relates how she experienced noises. We can be taught to appreciate little things much more than we do by considering how someone who is deaf and mute reaches out with other senses in order to understand. Both her teachers and her parents were wise to not discipline Helen for being naughty, for she often was not able to understand her naughtiness until later. Their patience, wisdom, and dedication are remarkable. Her personal teachers and their wise ways deserve more recognition.
She was blessed to have been born to a family that had the resources to help her meet the challenge of her infirmities. In spite of her limitations, she traveled a fair bit as well. She knew many persons of note at an early age, including Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Drummond. "My dullness," she says, "would have exhausted the patience of Job." Her keen sense may be attributed, not just to innate intelligence, but to the compensation of some faculties to the loss of others.
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