The Miracle Worker

This passage happens in act two, soon after Annie's arrival in the house. While at a meal, Helen continues to reach onto each person's plate and take whatever food she wishes. Normally, she gets...

James Keller, a son of the family's patriarch from a previous marriage is a young man who clearly represents the younger generation that questions authority for authority's sake. He has a very...

After witnessing Helen's behavior of running around the dinner table, sticking her hand into things, and locking her in her room upstairs, Anne Sullivan realizes that Helen is completely out of...

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...

"The Miracle Worker" is a play about Helen Keller and how her life changes when Annie Sullivan arrives. Viney is a servant in the Keller household. She has two children, Martha and Percy. Viney...

In Act One of William Gibson's play, The Miracle Worker, twenty-year-old Anne Sullivan completes her arduous train rides from the Perkins Institute for the Blind and arrives in Tuscumbia, Alabama,...

The Miracle Worker reveals the difficulties and the progress of Helen Keller after Annie Sullivan comes to the Keller's home to try and improve Helen's quality of life. Helen is a spoiled child,...

The poignant history of Helen Keller's los of hearing and sight, and her miraculous rescue by Annie Sullivan from dark isolation, the key is a symbol of what Annie will do for Helen: She will open...

Both Annie and Helen are vision impaired, though Helen is completely blind, while Annie is still partially able to see. Their limitations have been overcome by their own stubbornness, and Annie is...

The Miracle Worker is a play, adapted for television, revealing the influence that Annie Sullivan has on Helen Keller after she has been left blind and deaf after an illness as a baby. Annie works...

Annie compares her own experience in an asylum for the poor with Helen’s home life. When Captain Keller contemplates sending Helen to an asylum for the blind, fearing that she will never be able to...

Annie and her little brother Jimmie grew up in the state asylum at Tewksberry, Massachusetts, where conditions were notoriously harsh. The two children were sent there together when their mother...

The Civil War was not only the "War Between the States," it was in some states a war within the state as families were divided in their support of the North or the South. Such a war within the...

In the second part of act 1, we meet Annie Sullivan as she prepares to leave for Alabama from the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Massachusetts. She is a student at the institute, but Annie also...

Annie Sullivan is Helen Keller's teacher and her determination and patience, as revealed in The Miracle Worker, reveal her great strength and one of the reasons why Helen Keller is able to become...

Captain Keller strongly disapproves of Annie's work with Helen. In short, he feels that Annie is too strict with her charge. He believes that Annie lacks pity or compassion for Helen. To Captain...

Anne Sullivan is a survivor to the core. She had a sad childhood, being forced to grow up in an almshouse surrounded by illness, filth, and death, and then losing her younger brother. She is still...

The stage directions indicate the changes of scenes, which are marked by lights fading in and out and characters from the closing scene remaining motionless. After the directions for lights fading...

Kate responds with both weariness and defeat. Kate, of course, has just given Helen a sweet so that (even though Helen has just stabbed Annie) Helen will drop the sewing card (which was Annie's...

Captain Keller and his son, James, are arguing over how and why the South lost the war. They focus their debate on the Battle of Vicksburg, which was won by Ulysses S. Grant. Keller's argument is...

In The Miracle Worker, Annie Sullivan and Captain Arthur Keller, Helen's father, are both similar and different. If we look at the similarities, both love Helen, though the captain hides his...

When Anne Sullivan came to work with Helen Keller, Helen was both blind and deaf. She could not speak and had had little training in how to behave. That meant that Helen reacted to life more as an...

Well, you're right that it doesn't take long for Helen and Annie to begin butting heads! In fact, their very first encounter is a negative one. Of course, it involves something very significant...

The Miracle Worker, a play by William Gibson, is based on the lives of Helen Keller and her lifetime companion, Annie Sullivan. In terms of conflicts, there are two major kinds: internal and...

"The Miracle Worker" by William Gibson is based on Helen Keller's first discovery that words, and that most famous word of all for Helen Keller, "W-A-T-E-R," have the potential to release Helen...

Because of her disability, Helen has not been held to the same standards as other children. In their dysfunctional family dynamic, the Kellers do not wish to deal realistically with the fact that...

I can't even tell you what fun I had answering your question! I love this play and know most of it by heart, but never really explored these two characters as a pair. What an interesting set of...

James is Helen’s half-brother, and with his negative attitude, he emphasizes the ‘half,’ desiring to distance his association with her. He wants Helen sent away to an asylum, out of sight and out...

This dinner is held in Act 3 to "welcome" Helen back to the house after she spent two weeks in the garden house with Annie Sullivan. While she has been in the garden house, she has started to...

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson is a play which outlines some of the highlights and difficulties for Helen Keller's family, and in particular, Annie Sullivan, as they struggle to help Helen...

Annie Sullivan comes to the Keller household from The Perkins' Institute for the Blind and is only partially sighted herself. In The Miracle Worker, the audience learns of the difference the...

Even from the beginning of The Miracle Worker, it is evident that there is animosity between James and his father, Captain Keller. James tries to resist his father's authority but as he says...

Helen enjoys eating candies, which everyone in her family gives her (probably because they feel bad for her and want a way to communicate their love for her). Since she is blind and deaf, she...

In The Miracle Worker, Helen Keller is portrayed as an unruly, out of control, child who suffers more from her parents' pity than from her affliction, having been left deaf and blind after...

Aunt Ev urges Captain Keller to consult with a doctor she has heard of in Baltimore concerning Helen. After witnessing another in a string of daily incidents in which Helen can neither be...

Doctor Howe is Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins Institute, the first school for the blind and visually impaired in the United States. Both Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller attended...

In The Miracle Worker, the climax, or moment of most dramatic significance, occurs when Helen has a breakthrough and realizes what Anne Sullivan is trying to teach her. Anne has been attempting to...

You'll find a detailed discussion of the plot in the Summary section of the enotes study guide to the play. In a nutshell, Anne Sullivan tries to teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller to...

Captain Keller runs a newspaper and is an editor in The Miracle Worker. In the first act of the play, Kate, Keller's wife, tells Helen (who is a baby at the time) that she will ask Helen's father...

Although one might think Annie's and Helen's first fight is in regards to the doll that Annie wants Helen to spell, the first scuffle is actually over Annie's suitcase before Annie even enters the...

The story of Helen Keller is one that is so well known, and still very useful today. When Helen's mother wanted to get her daughter real help, instead of having her institutionalized, Annie...

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson is a play about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, particularly the influence Annie has on Helen and her family. Helen Keller was left blind and deaf after an...

Mr. Anagnos speaks with Annie Sullivan before she leaves to become Helen Keller's teacher. She had been at the Perkins Institution since she was a girl. - Mr. Anagnos explains to Annie what her...

Oh, you're right that Annie faces new problems in Act 2! Annie gives us a glimpse into those problems with the letter she is writing at the beginning of the act (each word interrupted by commas to...

At the start of Act II, It is evening and Annie is writing a letter. In the letter, Annie explains how much control Helen has over her family, "mutter[ing] each word as she writes": . . . and,...

The agreement that Helen's teacher, Annie Sullivan, and her father, Captain Keller, come to before leaving the garden house is that Captain Keller will allow Helen and her to live together alone in...

The Miracle Worker is a play by William Gibson which gives a different perspective other than Helen's own, on life in the Keller household after Helen is left blind and deaf from an illness as a...

Act II is a very dramatic section of this play, because we see Annie beginning to impose her regime upon Helen and upon the Keller family. One of the most important sections of this act to my mind...

Although it could be considered ironic that Helen desperately wants the doll to have eyes because Helen doesn't have eyes that function in the first place, I think the more important irony here is...

Tewksbury was the location of a public institution for the poor near Boston, where Annie Sullivan and her brother were sent after the death of their mother. The Tewksbury Almshouse was notorious...