MovieChat Forums > The Miracle Worker (1962) Discussion > Did Helen Keller remember having sight a...

Did Helen Keller remember having sight and hearing?

posted 19 years ago by sonofbeach-sheet
10 replies | jump to latest

I know she was not even 2 when the illness struck her, but I would think that with the incident at the water well, she must have had at least vague recollections. I thought in one of her books she wrote that she remembers "my eyes were hot and dry
and the light in the room got dimmer and dimmer and I thought day never came". Maybe that was something her editor made up.

BTW, even more interesting. When she was 30, she had her natural eyes removed and replaced with glass ones. If you look at the photos of her when she was a child and young adult, her head was always turned to the right side so you wouldn't see her disfigured left eye, but later on, they are full face photos. I personally think she should have just worn dark glasses instead.

[–] sarahelizabethii 19 years ago

If you read her autobiography, you'll get the impresssion that she remembered much more than she did. She describes the southern environment of her home, but never actually says she remembers what she's describing. A clever editorial trick, I bet.

According to the film, Helen Keller in Her Story "the glint of crystals is the one thing Helen *thinks* she remembers seeing as a baby." When I was at Keller's home in Alabama, I noticed a pair of crystal candle-holders on the wall of the main hallway...

[–] sonofbeach-sheet 18 years ago

I finally read her book The Story of My Life and she seemed to be giving almost a detailed analysis when she had her illness and that she stared at the lamp in her room with her eyes "feeling dry and hot"

[–] Molly-31 18 years ago

When asked to relate her very earliest memory, she said it almost seemed like a dream. She was lying down with her face in, she thought, someone's lap. Someone picked her up, and lifted her into a painfully bright light, and she reacted by "screaming violently."

That someone was James. He and Aunt Ev corroborated the whole story. Just after Helen had taken ill, she was lying on the settee in the front room with her face in a pillow. He picked her up to comfort her, and as she was raised into the light she screamed.

[–] Coryraisa 18 years ago

There was no way she could have worn sunglasses before Annie came because back then, she was too out of control to have anything on her face.

[–] Molly-31 18 years ago

Helen didn't wear sunglasses. Annie did. But Helen writes that in Wrentham when she was in about junior high, during a very bright sunny winter day with the sunlight reflecting off the ice and snow, she could see the light, that's how bright it was.

[–] Coryraisa 16 years ago

True...Annie was the only one who wore the sunglasses. Funny, could Helen have been discribing feeling the sunlight bouncing of the snow? Because, remember unlike the partially blind Annie, she was 100% blind and couldn't see any light. Helen was able to feel things very well and often while performing or speaking onstage, was able to tell how large the crowd was and what kind of people were in the crowd just be her sense of smell and touch (thru vibrations).

Often people who lose a sense rely more heavily on the others and so those senses get more exercise and develop much more.

[–] Molly-31 15 years ago

"Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak and hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. Half walking in the paths, half working our way though the lesser drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just outside a broad pasture. The trees stood motionless and white like figures in a marble frieze. There was no odour of pine-needles. The rays of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched them. So dazzling was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my eyes."

[–] WritingJester 16 years ago

She read a lot of books, and one of her biographies said that she tended to use a lot of imagery in her everyday speech, adding more poetry than what's usual in how someone talks. So I'm guessing from there. I'm deaf too and use descriptions of sounds from books I've read in my stories.

[–] svetlanahat 10 years ago

Even people who have been born blind since birth say that they can often 'see' light. A man, born blind since birth, has a Youtube page up. His name is Tommy Edison. He's never seen ANYTHING in his life but says that he'll be able to see light and shadows and that's it. I don't know how it all works, but, maybe a different part of the eye (not used to see vision) can pick up on shadows / light? Many blind since birth people report 'seeing' light and shadows.

It is not at all strange that the light that day was so bright that Helen even 'saw' it.

[–] 10 years ago

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