The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

First published: 1903, rev. ed. 1966

The Work

The Story of My Life was written while Helen Keller, then in her early twenties, was a student at Radcliffe College. It is a moving story of the education of a child with the extreme handicap of being deaf and blind. The book begins with a rather vague description of young Helen’s earliest memories, before she became deaf and blind at the age of nineteen months, but most of it narrates her teaching by Anne Sullivan of the Perkins Institute for the Blind.

The Story of My Life is far from the cry for help that it might easily have been. The tone is one of joy. Keller emphasizes her early love of language. She recalls learning to speak before she lost her ability to see or hear and her desperate attempts to reawaken this ability. Throughout the book, there is a strong emphasis on her love of language, especially the written word, which was, after all, one of the few ways she had of relating to the outside world.

The major emphasis of A Story of My Life is on the work of Sullivan, whom Helen always in this book refers to as Teacher. As subsequent writings made clearer, Sullivan’s methods were far from orthodox at the time. She communicated with Helen mostly by use of the manual alphabet, although lip-reading with fingers was also attempted. At the time, oral communication was almost universally stressed among educators of deaf children.

When this book was written, Keller had already published a few articles and was doing well at Radcliffe (she was graduated with honors in 1904). Keller makes it clear that she cannot speak intelligibly, and stresses that she probably never will. In fact, when Keller became a social activist later in life, she made a number of attempts to improve her speech, although her double disability made this difficult. After her graduation, she was regularly accompanied by Sullivan on lecture tours. Sullivan acted as an interpreter as well as an additional speaker on educational methods.

The Story of My Life is a tale of triumph over difficulties that would be insurmountable to most children. Keller went on to become a noted author, speaker, and political activist, advocating human rights for people not only with physical disabilities but also with social problems. Many of her later works were largely autobiographical, but there was always an emphasis on the inherent power of the individual to journey through life with hope. The Story of My Life is the first chapter in such a journey.

Bibliography

Boylan, Esther, ed. Women and Disability. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books, 1991. A series of articles on the situation of disabled women in the world. This book places emphasis on the concept that women have a “double handicap” by being female as well as disabled.

Brooks, Van Wyck. Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1956. A biography of Keller covering her early years, her later development as an adult author and activist, and her continuing relationship with Anne Sullivan Macy, her teacher from early childhood.

Hillyer, Barbara. Feminism and Disability. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. The story of a woman bringing up a disabled little girl. The stress in this book is on the feminist movement and the movement for the rights of disabled people of both sexes, and on how the two issues may come into conflict.

Keller, Helen. Midstream: My Later Life. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1968. A reprint of an autobiography of Keller originally published in 1929. This book continues where The Story of My Life left off. It offers insights into the author’s later development, after she was graduated from college and entered the mainstream of American society.

Keller, Helen. Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955. A biography of Helen Keller’s early teacher and longtime companion and helper. Explores Keller’s training from a later point of view, as well as providing insight into the life of Anne Sullivan and the long-standing relationship between the two women.

Lash, Joseph P. Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy. New York: Delacorte Press, 1980. The story of Keller’s training and the relationship between Keller and her teacher. Traces the development of both women from Sullivan’s childhood in the 1860’s through Keller’s death in 1968.

McInnes, J. M., and J. A. Treffry. Deaf-Blind Infants and Children: A Developmental Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982. A modern guide to the teaching of children with Helen Keller’s problems. This book provides a discussion of modern methods used in treating such children, which have changed greatly since the days of Keller’s childhood.