Many people, including the Keller family, didn’t believe a miracle such as Helen ever being able to communicate in an adult fashion could ever occur. However, in a line stated by Anagos, Annie’s mentor, he describes Helen as a “little safe, locked that no one can open- perhaps there is treasure inside” (Gibson 13). This proves to be a truthful statement, as Helen Keller is able to do more than what people could ever imagine someone with such a disability could ever do. This of course was with the help of her teacher and friend for life, Annie Sullivan. The Miracle Worker is a play that introduces the audience to the groundbreaking improvised teaching methods used by Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old legally blind adult. William …show more content…
Their only chance of surviving in a world that wasn’t fully adapted to helping them with their needs was to carve their own path in this unrelenting environment. Annie’s struggle started when she was a little girl; she and her little brother were placed into an asylum and the memories of their stay haunted her. Not only this, but the memories of her little brother and his constant calling for her to remain with him “forever” still caused Annie to disassociate when she was an adult. Annie and her younger brother were separated and he died, leaving her with scarring visions of Jimmy telling her that that it “hurts to be dead- forever” and a sense that she abandoned him (Gibson 62). While these thoughts haunt her as well as the horrific experience in the mental asylum, Annie stated that they “made her stronger” (Gibson 69). In this same moment, she not only said that those dark moments made her strong, but Helen is already strong enough and doesn’t need to go through that. Even with Annie’s illiteracy and blindness that causes her to strain her eyes constantly which caused her pain, she refused to let this stop her from giving Helen the best improvised teaching method she could possibly give. In a dialogue exchange between Katie and Annie, she states that she is learning how to spell, and Katie warned against her hurting her eyes for this, but she stated “whatever I spell to Helen, I’d better spell right,” which amazed Katie …show more content…
The families refusal to comply with Annie’s teaching methods as they found were unloving and cruel made her job all the more difficult for her to accomplish the task of teaching Helen how to read. According to Gibson in the NPR interview, he found that the family only wanted Annie at their house so that she could “tame their wild girl” and, as Annie puts it, “housebreak” the little girl (NPR : Gibson 66). She found this insulting to Helen, as they treated her the same that they treat their dog, Belle. She compares their view of Helen to a pet on multiple points in the play, one that was most striking was when they took Helen away from her complete authoritative care and she states “give them back their child and their dog, both housebroken, everyone’s satisfied but you and me.” (Gibson 94) This shows how they only wanted her to have good manners and even then didn’t understand how to let her maintain these good manners. Eventually, a miracle happens and Helen is finally able to understand what Annie has been trying to teach her. Amazingly, this only took Annie four weeks to accomplish, something that no one thought this young adult that was illiterate and almost completely blind would ever do. This play only shows the beginnings of a lifelong companionship between teacher and student and