Detailed Summary Chapter 1
When and where was Helen Keller born?
Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Maryland. Her father’s ancestor was Casper Keller. He was a native of Scotland and later on, he settled in Maryland.Helen Keller's One of the Ancestors
Here, Helen narrates us a co-incidence. One of her ancestors happened to be the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and he wrote a book to educate the deaf people. While writing that book, he had never imagined that one day one of his descendants would need that book urgently.
Her grandfather, Casper Keller’s son settled in Alabama along with his family. She was told that he went from Tuscumbia to Philadephia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation once a year. His aunt had so many letters describing all those trips in detail in her possession.
About Helen Keller's Parents
Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate Army. Her mother Kate Adam was her father’s second wife and she was several years younger.
Their Beautiful House
Her father built a small house in the south after the civil war. After marrying her mother, both of her parents went to live in that small house. It was beautifully covered with vines (climbing plants like grapevines), climbing roses, and honeysuckles. In this manner, she describes her house.
Garden‘Ivy Green’:
At a small distance from her small house, there was a garden, which was called ‘Ivy Green’.
It was surrounded by trees and fences, which were covered by beautiful English Ivy. It was a paradise of her childhood. Helen also tells us how she used to find comfort in that garden when she was in a fit of temper. She used to hide her hot face in the cool leaves and grass.
After describing the beautiful flower garden so minutely, she tells us that the beginning of her life was simple like the life of other children. She had the importance of being the first child in the family.
Helen Everett, Her Grandmother
There was a lot of discussion on selecting her name. Finally, it was decided that her name would be after her grandmother’s name, Helen Everett. But, when her father took her to the church, he forgot in excitement the name which was decided. When the minister asked him to utter the name, He spoke ‘Helen Adams’.
Helen's Early Days
She is told that she was a very eager girl, ready to assert herself, and imitate what others do. She was able to utter, ‘How d’ye’ and one day she caught the attention of everyone by saying ‘Tea, tea, tea’ quite clearly. She started walking when she was a year old. She loved nature from the very beginning.
Helen Fell a Victim to a Mysterious Disease:
But her happiness did not last long. It was the dreary month of February when she fell victim to a mysterious disease. It closed her eyes and ears. The doctor called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. Her doctor was even hopeless about her survival. One early morning, the fever left her suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. It made the family happy again, not even the doctor knew that she would not be able to see and hear in the future.
Helen's Agony & Bewilderment
Towards the end of the chapter, she describes that she had very dim recollections of those very painful days when her mother tried to soothe her during her waking hours of the fret (worried and unhappy) and pain and the agony (extreme physical and mental pain) and bewilderment (feeling of completely confused and lost), with which she awoke “after a tossing half-sleep and turned my eyes so dry and hot, to the wall, away from the once-loved light, which came to me dim yet dimmer each day.”
Except from those fleeting (running) memories, everything, it all seemed unreal and like a nightmare.
Gradually she became used to the silence and darkness that surrounded her all the time and forgot that it had ever been different.
Then her teacher came and she set her spirit free. But during the first nineteen months of her early life, she had the glimpse (a small view) of broad green fields, a luminous (shining bright) sky, tree, and flowers, which could not be erased completely by the darkness that followed.
Possible Questions:
Q1. How did Helen lose the faculty of see and hear?
Q2. How was the book that was written by one of her ancestors proved to be a coincidence?
Q3. What do you mean by “There is no king who had not a slave among his ancestors, and no slave, who has not had a king among his”
(Hints: The statement hints at a deep meaning that is applicable in human life. In nature, every incidence has a purpose. We cannot imagine joys without sorrows, a day without night, goodness without evil, creation without destruction, richness without poverty, and so on. Among one’s ancestors, there were good as well as bad ones, the rich as well as the poor, the most efficient as well as the laziest ones, and so on. Similarly one cannot imagine a king without a slave.
