The Story of My Life II Chapter 6 Simplified Summary # Chapter 6

 

The Story of My Life: Chapter 6 (Simplified Summary)

Helen Traversed a Long Distance Since She Stammered Her First Word

Helen Keller describes that she had got the key to all languages and she was very much eager to use it. She further tells us that normal children don’t have to make much effort to understand the words that they listen to from others’ mouths. But for deaf and blind children, it is a very painful process. But despite the difficulties, it leads to wonderful results. Thus Helen traversed a long distance since she stammered her first word.

Helen Became Inquisitive

In the beginning, when her teacher told her about a thing, she would ask her several questions as her ideas were vague and her vocabulary was insufficient. But as her knowledge about things grew and her vocabulary increased, she became more and more inquisitive. She would spend more time now asking about the same topic to get more information about it. Sometimes she was able to correlate a new word with her previous experience.

What is Love?

She remembers the morning when she first asked her teacher about the word ‘love’. At that time, she didn’t know more words. She picked up some early violet flowers in the garden and brought them to her teacher, who tried to kiss her. But, Helen did not like anyone to kiss except her mother at that time. Then Miss Sullivan put her arm gently around her and spelled the words ‘I love Helen.’ Into her hand. “What is love?” she asked.

Miss Sullivan drew her closer and said, “It is here.”, pointing at Helen’s heart. She felt the beats of her heart for the first time. Miss Sullivan’s words puzzled her very much because she did not understand anything until she touched it.

After that, she smelt the sweet violets and asked Miss Sullivan half in words and a half in signs if the sweetness of the flowers was love.

Her teacher replied in negative.

Again she asked her teacher if it was the sun from which the heat was coming.

The Process of Thinking

In the next passage, Helen explains to us how she understood the process of ‘thinking’. After a day or so, she was making a string of beads in a system: two large beads, three small ones, and so on. She had made several attempts and every time made a mistake to follow the arrangement.

She at once understood that the word ‘think’ stood for a name of the process she had undergone to correct her mistake. Thus it was her first experience to understand an abstract idea.

After that, she did not think about the beads but tried to find out the meaning of the word ‘love’ in the light of the new idea.

That day, there had been brief showers all day, so the sun was under the clouds. Then suddenly, it broke off the clouds and spread its warmth everywhere. Helen at once asked her teacher, “Is this not love?”

At this Miss Sullivan replied, “Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out.”

Then she used the simpler words to make Helen understand it she was not able to understand at that time.

She told Helen that she could not touch the clouds, but she could feel the rain. She further said that love also cannot be touched as she was unable to touch the clouds. Helen says that Miss Sullivan used to speak to her as she would speak to a hearing child from the very beginning of her education.

The only difference was that she would spell the sentences into her hand steadily by speaking. In this process, she also supplied to her the necessary words and idioms for Helen to express her thoughts.

That process continued for several years because a lot of time is needed to make a deaf and blind child understand things.

A hearing child can understand the words, idioms, and several expressions early at home by means of repetition and imitation. The child listens to the conversation at home and it stimulates his mind to use those words and expressions.

But this natural process is denied to the deaf child. But Helen’s teacher found such stimulus by means of her innovative mind. She did it for Helen by making several repetitions of the word she heard. She also inspired her to take part in conversation but it took a long time.

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The Story of My Life: Chapter 5 (Simplified Summary)

 The Story of My Life: Chapter 5 (Simplified Summary)

In the chapter 4, Helen Keller’s teacher, Miss Sullivan,  had succeeded in making her understand the difference between ‘water’ and ‘mug’. After that, she came to know that everything had some name.

 The Year 1887

Now, we come to understand chapter 5 and in the very beginning o this chapter, Helen Keller recalls several incidents of 1887, which brought about a change in her soul She became curious to know the name of the things she touched. It made her feel joyous and confident more and more. It also built up her ‘kinship’ with the rest of the world.

Miss Sullivan would also take her by the hand to the fields at the bank of the river, where men were preparing the earth for sowing the seeds of the flowers like daisies and buttercups.

Thanks to: Photo by Peter Döpper from Pexels & Thanks to Photo by Alin Luna from Pexels


Nature as a Kind and Generous Deity

She had her first lesson on the beneficence (kindness and generosity) of Nature while sitting there on the warm grass. She came to know about it. She also came to know as to how the birds built their nests, live in them, and how the squirrels, the deer, the lion, and every other creature find food and shelter.

As her knowledge about the world grew in her, she also felt more delight at heart. She had already been taught by her teacher to find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and in the curves and dimples in her baby sister’s hands. Miss Sullivan also made her feel that she was also the part of Nature, and birds and flowers were her happy companions.

Nature: Red in Tooth and Nail

By this time, she also learns that Nature was not always very kind. She also narrates an incident here, when she was coming back from a pleasant walk. The morning was fine, but it started growing warm and humid (damp/suffocating due to moisture in the air) as they were returning homewards. They had to stop for rest three times under the trees.
 

The shade of the tree was soothing and it was easy to climb the tree. She was also able to scramble (move quickly but with some difficulty) and sit at the forked (divided into two parts) branch of the tree It was so cool that Miss Sullivan proposed (suggested) that they should have their lunch there. Helen kept sitting at the branch while her teacher went to bring lunch from home.

Suddenly a change passed over the tree. She felt that there was no heat in the air. She thought that the sun had set and the night had descended ( came down: means there was darkness). After that, a strange odour (often unpleasant smell) came up from the earth. She was also acquainted with that odour as it was usually followed by a thunderstorm. A strange type of fear overpowered her heart. She was alone sitting on the branch of a tree

No friend of hers was near her, even her teacher Miss Sullivan had gone to fetch lunch from home. In that terrible situation, she longed her teacher to reach and above all she wanted to get down from the tree.

Firstly, there was a sinister (having evil designs)
or threatening) silence prevailing in the whole atmosphere and then it was followed by a sudden movement in the leaves of the tree.
After that there was a sudden blast of air that would have thrown her off the tree had she not clung to the branch. The tree swayed to and fro. A sudden impulse to jump down from the tree seized her, but the terror involved in the effort stopped her. 

Then she lay in between the division of the branches that kept lashing at her body. After that, she felt as if something heavy had fallen down. She was thinking that the tree along with her would fall down.
At the same time, her teacher reached there and seized her hand and helped her come down the tree.

 She clung to her teacher trembling to feel the earth. She had learned a new lesson that day and it was the terrifying aspect of Nature that was hidden and treacherous. One cannot understand as to when Nature starts her war against her creation.

After that experience, she dared not climb a tree for a long time.

A Tree of Paradise:
One beautiful morning, When she was alone in the house, a unique fragrance overpowered her. She began to stand up stretching out her hands. She immediately understood that it was the sweet fragrance of the mimosa blossoms. She felt her way to the mimosa tree as she knew that it was at the end of the garden near the fence. Its quivering blossom-laden branches were almost touching the long grass.

She felt as if a tree of paradise has been transplanted on the earth. She moved further to the trunk of the tree. Then she put the foot in the wide space between the branches and pulled herself up into the tree. She had some difficulty in holding the branches as they were large. The bark hurt her hands. 

Despite all that, she enjoyed a wonderful sense that she was doing something unique. So she was climbing higher and higher until she reached a seat that was built by someone long ago. She sat there for long and felt as if she was a fairy sitting on a rosy cloud. After that, she felt many happy hours in the tree of paradise, thinking nice thoughts and dreaming beautiful dreams.
 

 

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller # Chapter 4

 

The Story of My Life: Chapter 4

About this Chapter

In this chapter, we come to know the importance of a sensitive and honest  teacher in a student’s life. Miss Sullivan plays a very important role in Helen’s life.  Helen also describes at the beginning of this chapter as to how her life was full of darkness and then her teacher brought hope and light in her life.

Helen Keller’s Most Important Day

This begins with Helen Keller’s assertion (claim) that the most important day of her life was the one on which her teacher Miss Sullivan came to teach her. She was full of wonder to think about the broad and immeasurable gap that existed between Miss Sullivan and her and in a way that connected both of them.     The day on which her teacher arrived was March 3, 1887, when she was going to become of 7 years after three months. Here, we come to know as to how she was hopeful of someone’s arrival in the house.

 She could understand it beforehand by the special kinds of movements of her mother. She was moving to and fro. Therefore Helen went to the door before time. She stood at the steps and waited for someone to come. She stood on the porch quietly and hopefully.

In the next passage, Helen  Keller writes as to how she was hopeful of somebody’s arrival in the house. She had felt some special kind of movements there. She had also felt as to how her mother was moving to and fro in the house. So she went to the door and waited on the steps. On that eventful (important) day, she stood on the porch, quiet and expectant (eager, hopeful). Now she describes how the sunrays were penetrating (entering) through the branches of the honeysuckle that covered the whole porch and also falling on her upturned face.

She was also touching unconsciously (without any intention) the leaves and flowers of the vine with a continuous soft touch and it seemed to her that those flowers had blossomed to welcome the sweet southern spring.   The leaves and flowers were familiar to her because she used to come there and touched them softly. She was not clear or certain about her future at that time, whether it would be surprising for her or not.

Uncertain About Her Future

 She was, perhaps, uncertain about her future because she had been a prey (victim) to anger and bitterness so far continually for weeks. As a result of that, a languor (a pleasant state of being lazy and without energy) followed that intense struggle.

In the next passage, Helen uses a simile to prove how she felt miserable in the world of darkness, where there was no hope of coming into the world of knowledge and brightness.  She compares herself to a ship that is surrounded by dense white fog and has lost its way to reach the shore.   It follows a sound line that  comes from a distance (It may be the sound of a foghorn set up at some lighthouse at the sea-shore), moves to plummet (to fall suddenly from high position) without having knowledge of the hidden dangers on the way and waiting for something unfortunate to happen.

 The same situation was faced by Helen in her life. Her condition was like that of the ship described above before her education began. The difference was that she was without any compass and sounding-line and she had no means to know how near she was from her harbor (Here it means destination).   Her soul’s cry was to provide her with the light of love and knowledge and the light of love was shown on her that very hour.

Miss Sullivan’s Arrival

After some time, she felt someone’s approaching footsteps. She stretched her arm as she had thought it to be her mother. Her arm was taken by someone who made her stand and then held in her arms. It was Miss Sullivan, who had come to reveal all the things and above them all to love her.

That very morning her teacher led her to her room and gave a doll. It was a gift sent to her by the little blind children who studied at Perkins and Laura Bridgman and had dressed it. But it was later on when she came to much about the doll.

Education Begins

She played for some time with the doll and the teacher spelled the letters ‘d-o-l-l” on her palm of her hand. She thought it a finger play and took an interest at once in it.

 She imitated the activity and when she was successful in imitating the letters, she was full of excitement and felt childish pleasure and pride in it. After that, she ran down quickly to her mother and spelled the letters for the doll on her own hand.

At that time, she did not know that the word ‘doll’ existed. She was just imitating the word in a playful way. In the following days, she learned to spell in this way that she could not understand at that time several words.

These were: pin, hat, cup, and some verbs like sit stand, and walk. She had understood before the arrival of her teacher that everything had a name.

 One day when she was busy playing with her new doll, her teacher Miss Sullivan put in her lap the old big rag doll. She also spelled “d-o-l-l” and tried to make her understand that the word ‘doll’ applied to both of them.

Earlier, in the, they had a tussle over the words ‘water’ and ‘mug’. Miss Sullivan was trying hard to make her understand that those were two separate words, but Helen was bent on (determined) confusing both the words standing for the same meaning.

    Her teacher had dropped the topic at that time for the time being. Now, when she picked up the same topic of making her understand the difference between the two words, Helen became impatient (easily annoyed).

Helen’s Rage

 She seized (to take something quickly) the new doll and dashed (hit with force) it on the floor. She enjoyed a strange type of delight when she felt at her feet the broken pieces of the doll lying scattered on the floor.

She felt neither sorrow nor regret at the violent acts done by her. She did not love the doll. She says that she lived in a dark world that was disappointing and hopeless for her and there was no place for soft feelings like tenderness in that world.

  She felt that her teacher was sweeping the fragments (small pieces) of the doll to one side of the hearth. In a way she had some satisfaction at that act as the cause of her discomfort had been removed.

After that, her teacher brought a hat for her and she at once understood that was being taken outside in the warm sunshine. It made her hop (jump) and skip with pleasure.

 They walked towards the well-house that was covered with the honeysuckle spreading the sweet and attractive fragrance. Someone was drawing water and her teacher placed her hand under the pipe from which the cold water was coming out. As the cool water fell over her hand, Miss Sullivan spelled the word ‘water’, first in a slow manner and then fast.

  She stood motionless and her whole attention was on the motions of her teacher’s fingers. After that, she had some gradual understanding that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant wonderfully cool, something that was flowing over her hand.

She learned many new words that day. She remembered some of them that were: mother, father, sister, teacher, etc. These were the words that were going to fill her life with happiness. She was a happier child when she lay in her small cot and for the first time she longed for the new day to arrive.  She understood that the word ‘w-a-t-e-r’ was a reality. It awakened her soul and gave it some light, hope, joy and in a way set it free from the barriers of the darkness that still prevailed in her mind.

Her Eagerness to Learn More

She was full of eagerness to learn more when they left the well. She had come to know that everything had a name and each name gave birth to a new thought in her mind. While coming back home, every object that she touched seemed filled with life to her. She also remembered the doll she had broken as she entered the door.

 She picked up the broken pieces and tried in vain to rejoin them. Then her eyes were filled with tears and for the first time she felt repentance and sorrow for the wrong she had committed.

   Chapter 4 Ends up!