The Impact of Water: Metamorphosis

Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait

"Within a month the vixen, the furious little termagant, had been transformed into a gentle child, contentedly stringing her beads and serenely crocheting, revealing already what Anne called the beautiful intelligence that she was to spend years developing with the unheard-of devotion."

The revelation of Helen Keller's life is not one to be hidden. This quote discloses something very interesting; Helen Keller was not always a devoted and well-behaved child. In fact, she was quite the opposite. As a young child Helen became very sick and was left with a permanent scar. She was to remain blind and deaf for eternity. Due to such a harsh destiny her parents offered her the world and let her do as she pleased. Her actions unfortunately were not always well presented. Through tamper-tantrums Helen would achieve her way,that is until Anne Sullivan entered her life.

Anne Sullivan was Helen's personal teacher, who herself had defected eye vision. Anne struggled dreadfully with Helen in order to teach her respect and discipline. Moreover, Helen did not understand that words existed and could be used to comprehend situations and life. It was clear though that Helen was very bright because she seemed to repeat letters very quickly. Anne had tried to spell words into Helen's hand and connect them with objects, but sadly there were no resuts. Nothing seemed to work until one day when Anne had stuck Helen's hand under a water pump and vigorously spelled W-A-T-E-R into it.

At that very moment, Helen paused. Suddenly she had realized that words were tools used in forms of communication. Helen had spent the rest of her day memorizing and absorbing whatever she possibly could. From this very instant Helen's life was about to dramatically change for the better. For five years Helen had been isolated and left in the shawdows of her own life. This astounding experience had opened the gates for Helen, unleashed the barriers that lead her to escape the silence.