Friday, March 14, 2014

Summarize Annie's past as it's revealed in Act II and explain how it affects her work with Helen.William Gibson's The Miracle Worker

In Act Two of The Miracle Worker,
Anne Sullivan tries to gain control of Helen, but is met with resistance by the
Kellers.  When the Captain threatens to fire her, Anne returns to her room, goes wearily
to her suitcase, and as she lifts it she notices the Perkins Institution for
the Blind report; this report triggers her memory.


In her
memory, she hears a boy's voice, that of her dead brother.  Then the voices of the
crones, wise old women who tell the truth, are heard saying, "There is schools---" Annie
recalls having left for school in Boston and her poor brother begging her not to leave. 
This most melancholy of memories recurs when she goes to the garden house to talk with
the Kellers who have considered putting Helen in an asylum.  Annie tells them that she
grew up in an asylum:  "the state almshouse" where she and her brother Jimmie played
with the rats since they had no toys. After describing the type of people who lived
there, Annie tells the Kellers that she and Jimmie played in the deadhouse where the
bodies were kept prior to burial.  Needless to add, her descriptions convince
the Kellers to retain Anne as the governess for Helen.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...