The Story of My Life Ch 21-23
Chapter 21 - Summary
Helen Keller tells readers about her dependence on books for pleasure, wisdom andknowledge. Helen first began to read when she was seven years old. She read her first
connected story in May 1887. There were only a few books in raised print, which Helen read
repeatedly until a time when the words were so worn and pressed that she could scarcely
make them out.
During her visit to Boston, she was allowed to spend a part of each day at the Institution
library, and here she used to wander from bookcase to bookcase and take down whatever
her ‘fingers lighted upon’. When she discovered the book ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ Miss
Sullivan read it to her and the book became Helen’s ‘sweet and gentle companion’
throughout her childhood. From there she read many books and she loved ‘Little Women’
because it gave her a sense of kinship with girls and boys who could see and hear. She also
loved ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘Wild ‘Animals I Have Known’ as she felt a genuine interest in the
animals themselves, they being ‘real animals and not caricatures of men’. She was fascinated
by Greek literature and it was Iliad that made Greece her ‘paradise’. According to her, great
poetry did not need an interpreter but a responsive heart. Macbeth and King Lear impressed
her most among Shakespeare’s works. She read the Bible for years ‘with an ever-broadening
sense of joy and inspiration’. Helen also expresses her love for history apart from her love for
literature. The first book that gave her a real sense of the value of history was Swinton's
‘World's History’, which she received on her thirteenth birthday. Among the French writers,
she liked Molière and Racine best. Literature was Helen’s Utopia, where she faced no barrier
of the senses. The things that she had learned and the things that were taught to her seemed
of ridiculously little importance compared with their ‘large loves and heavenly charities’.
Comprehension questions
1. What was the significance of books in Helen’s life?Books had meant so much more in her education than in that of others. She
depended on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring to all who
read, but also for that knowledge which comes to others through their eyes and their
ears.
2. Why did she prefer reading herself than being read to?
Helen preferred reading herself than being read to because she liked to read again
and again the things that pleased her.
3. How did Helen spend part of each day at the Institution library?
Helen was permitted to spend part of each day in Institution library. She wandered
from bookcase to bookcase, and took down whatever book her fingers lighted upon.
She read the books even if she understood one word in ten or two words on a page.
The words themselves fascinated her. She took no conscious account of what she
read.
4. How did Helen gain a rich vocabulary?
Helen did a lot of reading at the Perkins Institute Library. Her impressionable mind
took in many words and sentences. Afterwards when she began to talk and write,
these words and sentences would flash out quite naturally, so her friends wondered
at the richness of her vocabulary.
5. What does Helen remember about the time and place when she and Miss Sullivan began
reading the story – ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’?
It was a warm afternoon in August. They were sitting together in a hammock which
swung from two solemn pines at a short distance from the house. The grasshoppers
swarmed about them and fastened themselves on their clothes, as they walked
through the long grass towards the hammock. The hammock was covered with pine
needles, for it had not been used while Helen’s teacher was away. The warm sun
shone on the pine trees and drew out all their fragrance. The air was balmy, with a
tang of the sea in it.
6. Why did Helen feel ‘a keen sense of deprivation’ while she and her teacher were reading
the story-‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’?
Miss Sullivan explained to Helen the things that she knew Helen did not understand,
before they began reading the story. She also explained unfamiliar words while
reading. There were so many words that the reading was constantly interrupted. As
soon as Helen comprehended the story, she listened impatiently to the explanations
of mere words. When Miss Sullivan’s fingers were too tired to spell another word,
Helen felt herself deprived for the first time. She took the book in her hands and
tried to feel the letters with an intense longing.
7. Why did Helen not study or analyze the books she read?
Helen read books in the intervals between study and play with an ever-deepening
sense of pleasure. Hence she did not study nor analyze them. She did not know
whether they were well written or not because she never thought about style or
authorship. They laid their treasures at her feet, and she accepted them as we accept
the sunshine and the love of our friends.
8. Why did Helen love the story-‘Little Women’?
She loved "Little Women" because it gave her a sense of kinship with girls and boys
who could see and hear. Since her life was circumscribed in so many ways, She had
to look between the covers of books for news of the world that lay outside her own.
9. Why did Helen dislike the book –‘Fables’ by La Fontaine?
The book had vivid word pictures and wonderful mastery of language yet Helen did
not like it because stories in which animals are made to talk and act like human
beings did not appeal to her very strongly. The ludicrous caricatures of the animals
occupied her mind to the exclusion of the moral. Moreover, according to Helen. La
Fontaine did not appeal to one’s high moral sense. He struck chords of reason and
self-love. Through all the fables runs the thought that man's morality springs wholly
from self-love, and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason,
happiness must follow. According to Helen, self-love is the root of all evil. She says
in her thinking for La Fontaine had greater opportunities of observing men than she
was likely to ever have.
10. Why did Helen enjoy reading the ‘Jungle Book’ and the ‘Wild Animals I Have Known’?
Helen felt a genuine interest in the animals themselves, because they are real
animals and not caricatures of men. One sympathizes with their loves and hatreds,
laughs over their comedies, and weeps over their tragedies. And if they point a
moral, it is so subtle that we are not conscious of it.
11. What is Helen’s opinion on ‘great poetry’?
Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than
a responsive heart. She says that all those who analyze and make comments on the
great works of the poets must learn this simple truth! It is not necessary that one
should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its
grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine
poem. Her learned professors may have found greater riches in the great poems than
she shall ever find; but she was not avaricious. She was content that others should be
wiser than her. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, they cannot
measure their enjoyment of great poems, nor can she. When she read the finest
passages of the Iliad, she was conscious of a soul-sense that lifted her above the
narrow, cramping circumstances of her life. Her physical limitations are forgotten.
Her world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens
were above hers!
12. What did Helen feel when a story from the bible was first read out to her? How have the
feelings changed?
When a story from the bible was first read out to her, it failed to interest her. The
unusual language and repetition made the story unreal and she fell asleep. But since
then she has discovered glories in the Bible and has read it with an ever broadening
sense of joy and inspiration. The Bible gives her deep comforting sense that ‘things
seen are temporal, and things unseen are eternal’.
13. What does Helen feel about Characters such as ‘Shylock’ and ‘Satan’?
Helen made the acquaintance of Shylock and Satan about the same time, for the two
characters were long associated in her mind. She felt sorry for them. They could not
be good even if they wished to, because no one seemed willing to help them or to
give them a fair chance. She cannot find it in her my heart to condemn them utterly.
There are moments when she felt that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil,
are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made
whole.
14. Why does Helen call literature her ‘Utopia’?
Helen calls literature her ‘Utopia’ because she does not feel disfranchised. No barrier
of the senses shuts her out from the sweet, gracious discourse of her book-friends.
They talk to her without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things she has learned
and the things she has been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared
with their ‘large loves and heavenly charities’.
Chapter 22- Summary
Books and reading were not the only things that Helen enjoyed. When Helen was notreading, she enjoyed outdoor activities. She liked swimming, canoeing, and sailing.
Helen felt that each one of us had the ability to understand the impressions and the
emotions experienced by mankind from the beginning. Blindness or deafness could not rob
us of our memory in the subconscious about the green earth. This, she termed as the sixth
sense which can see, feel and hear, all in one.
She has several tree friends and feels so close to them so much so that she believed she
could hear their sap flow and see the sun shining on the leaves.
People are surprised to find that she can tell the difference between city and the countryside.
This is because her whole body is alive to the conditions around her.
Helen enjoys riding her tandem bicycle. She has many dog friends who accompany her on
her walks and rides. They seem to understand her limitations and keep close to her when she
is alone.
When she is unable to go out she knits, crochets or reads. She plays checkers on special
boards and when alone plays solitaire on cards marked in braille. She is fond of children and
they reciprocate the feeling. Museums and art stores are a source of pleasure and inspiration.
She wonders if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye.
Helen takes much pleasure in going to the theatre and finds it more exciting having the
action on stage described to her than reading the play on her own.
Sometimes, she has a strong sense of isolation and blames fate for depriving her of light,
music and companionship. But she gains control of her feelings, refuses to utter complaints
and attempts to enjoy the beautiful world through the eyes and ears of others.
Comprehension questions
1. Which outdoor activities did Helen enjoy?Helen enjoyed rowing although she couldn’t guide the boat very well. Someone had
to sit in the stern and manage the rudder. She has also gone rowing without a
rudder. She found it exhilarating to make the staunch little boat obedient to one’s
will and muscle. She also enjoyed canoeing, especially on moonlit nights. Although
she couldn’t see the moon, she knew ‘she’ was there and could feel ‘her’ shimmer.
Her favourite amusement was sailing.
2. To which part of the tree does Helen compare herself?
Helen compares herself to the roots of a tree. She says although the roots are shut
in the dark earth, they share the tree top’s joyance and can imagine the sunshine,
wide air and winged things.
3. Describe Helen’s tree friends?
Helen had many tree friends. One of them was a splendid oak. It was the special
pride of her heart. She took all her other friends to see that king-tree. It stood on a
bluff overlooking King Philip's Pond, and those who are wise in tree lore say it must
have stood there eight hundred or a thousand years. Another tree friend was the
Linden, gentle and more approachable than the oak. Unfortunately, it fell during a
terrible thunderstorm. It wrung Helen’ heart to see the one who had mightily
striven to have mightily fallen.
4. What things, according to Helen will endure forever?
Helen looked forward to spending time amidst nature away from work, college and
the noisy city. She did hear about what was happening in the world- war, alliance
and social conflict but did not pay much heed to them for they would pass away.
But here in the countryside, lakes and woods, broad daisy starred fields, sweet
meadows would endure forever.
5. What aspects of the city life troubles Helen? What does she think could be done to
improve it?
It troubles Helen to think that good people should be content to live in fine houses
and become strong and beautiful, while others are condemned to live in hideous,
sunless tenements and grow ugly, withered and cringing. The children half-clad and
underfed haunt her with a constant sense of pain. There are men and women, too,
all gnarled and bent out of shape. She realizes that their existence is an endless
struggle, an immense disparity between effort and opportunity. The sun and the air
are God's free gifts to all, we say, but in city's dingy alleys the sun does not shine
and the air is foul. She wonders if those men would leave the city, its splendour and
its tumult and its gold, and return to wood and field and simple, honest living! Then
would their children grow stately as noble trees and their thoughts sweet and pure
as wayside flowers.
6. How does Helen amuse herself on rainy days?
During rainy days, Helen keeps indoors and knits and crochets and reads like other
girls. She also plays a game or two of checkers or chess with a friend on special board.
If she happens to be all alone and in an idle mood, she plays a game of solitaire, of
which she is very fond. She uses playing cards marked in the upper right-hand corner
with braille symbols which indicate the value of the card. If there are children around, it
pleases her greatly to frolic with them. She finds even the smallest child excellent
company, and children usually like her.
7. How is Helen able to appreciate the works of art?
Museums and art stores were also sources of pleasure and inspiration for Helen. It will
seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment,
beauty in the cold marble and yet Helen derived genuine pleasure from touching great
works of art. As her finger tips traced line and curve, they discover the thought and
emotion which the artist had portrayed. She could feel in the faces of gods and heroes
hate, courage and love, just as she could detect them in living faces she was permitted
to touch. Helen sometimes wondered if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties
of sculpture than the eye. She thinks that the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and
curves could be more subtly felt than seen.
8. How does Helen learn to be content with her limitations?
Helen says that her life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the
beautiful world. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and she has
learnt to be content with, whatever state she may be in. Sometimes, a sense of
isolation enfolds her like a cold mist as she sits alone and waits at life's shut gate.
Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship but she cannot enter. She
questions her fate but her tongue does not utter the bitter words against it. The words
fall back into her heart like unshed tears. Silence sits upon her soul and then hope
comes, smiles and whispers that there is joy in self-forgetfulness. So she tries to make
the light in others' eyes her sun, the music in others' ears her symphony, the smile on
others' lips her happiness.
Chapter 23- Summary
In the final chapter of her autobiography, Helen wants to acknowledge the people who havehelped to make her life a happy one. Some of these people are famous, some are not and
some want to remain anonymous. Her only unkind words are for newspaper reporters, whom
she includes in the category of ‘the stupid and curious’, and for people who are
condescending to her. She got her own understanding of religion from Bishop Brooks, who
taught her that ‘there is one universal religion, – the religion of Love, and that ‘God is Love’.
After he died, she continued to find his way of approaching religion the most ‘soul-
satisfying’.
She talks about the well-known people whom she met and who spoke gracious words to her,
supported her and advised her. She makes a special mention of an anonymous benefactor, a
well-known industrialist who generously paid for her college education.
She ends the book by saying that her friends have made the story of her life. In a thousand
ways they have turned her limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled her to walk
serene and happy in the shadow cast by her deprivation.
Comprehension questions
1. What does Helen want to do in the concluding chapter of her autobiography?Helen wanted to enrich the concluding chapter of her autobiography with the names of
all those who have ministered to her happiness. Some of them are well known in
literature and dear to the hearts of many, while others would be wholly unknown to
most of the readers. But their influence, though it escapes fame, shall live immortal in
the lives that have been sweetened and ennobled by it.
2. What kind of people does Helen not like’?
Helen does not like the newspaper reporters whose calls are always ill-timed. She calls
them stupid and curious. She also dislikes people who try to talk down to her
understanding. Similarly, there are people who when walking with one try to shorten
their steps to suit . Helen finds their hypocrisy exasperating.
3. What did Helen learn about religion from Bishop Brooks?
Helen was puzzled to know why there were so many religions. Bishop Brooks explained
to her that there is one universal religion- the religion of love. Love your Heavenly
Father with your whole heart and soul, love every child of God as much as ever you can,
and remember that the possibilities of good are greater than the possibilities of evil;
and you have the key to Heaven. He impressed upon Helen two great ideas--the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and made her feel that these truths
underlie all creeds and forms of worship. God is love, God is our Father, we are His
children; therefore the darkest clouds will break and though right be worsted, wrong
shall not triumph.
4. Who, according to Helen have made ‘The story of her life’?
According to Helen, her friends have made the story of her life. In a thousand ways
they have turned her limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled her to walk
serene and happy in the shadow cast by her deprivation.
PRACTICE QUESTIONS
Q1 Answer the following question in 200-250 words.
1. What is Helen’s opinion on ‘great poetry’?
Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter
than a responsive heart. She says that all those who analyze and make comments
on the great works of the poets must learn this simple truth! It is not necessary
that one should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its
grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine
poem. Her learned professors may have found greater riches in the great poems
than she shall ever find; but she is not avaricious. She is content that others
should be wiser than her. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge,
they cannot measure their enjoyment of great poems, nor can she. When she read
the finest passages of the Iliad, she is conscious of a soul-sense that lifts her above
the narrow, cramping circumstances of her life. Her physical limitations are
forgotten. Her world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of
the heavens are hers!
2. How did Helen learn to be content with her limitations?
Helen says that her life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of
the beautiful world. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and
she has learnt to be content with, whatever state she may be in.
Sometimes, a sense of isolation enfolds her like a cold mist as she sits alone and
waits at life's shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet
companionship but she cannot enter. She questions her fate but her tongue does
not utter the bitter words against it. The words fall back into her heart like unshed
tears. Silence sits upon her soul and then hope comes, smiles and whispers that
there is joy in self-forgetfulness. So she tries to make the light in others' eyes her
sun, the music in others' ears her symphony, the smile on others' lips her
happiness.
3. What aspects of city life trouble Helen?
Noise is the dominant sensation that Helen associates with the city because her
whole body is alive to the conditions about her. There are no visual scenes to
distract her as they do to those who can see. Hence, the noise becomes even more
pronounced.
The other aspect of city life that troubles Helen is to think that some people
should be content to live in fine houses and become strong and beautiful, while
others are condemned to live in dirty places. The children half-clad and underfed.
The existence of such people is an endless struggle, an immense disparity
between effort and opportunity.
She feels that the sun and the air are God's free gifts to all, but in city's dingy
alleys the sun does not shine and the air is foul. She wonders that if men leave the
city and return to woods and fields and simple, honest living then it would help
them to improve in mind and body.
4. What does Helen talk about in the last chapter of the book? What aspect of Helen’s
nature do we learn from it?
Helen wanted to enrich the concluding chapter of her autobiography with the
names of all those who have ministered to her happiness. She gratefully
acknowledged the help, gracious words, advice and support of the many people
she met. Some were well known while others were not. She says that the days
when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem are red letter days. Such
people give the healing touch to our irritations and worries just as the ocean feels
the mountain stream freshening its brine.
This brings out her open nature. She is not embarrassed to admit that she owed a
lot in her life to the active involvement of many people in her life. She connected
with and established lasting relationships with people from diverse fields. She was
keen to learn from everyone whatever she could and whatever they were
prepared to teach her. She had the ability to attract people to her because of her
interest in life and the world around her. Her determination to overcome all
obstacles in her life is what drew people to her.
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