We learn from Annie that she lived in an asylum before she went to the Perkins Institute, Annie's brother died while they were living at the asylum. During the flashbacks throughout the play we learn what happened to Annie at the asylum as she tries to overcome her own demons.

Annie first appears while she is still at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, where she has lived as a pupil since she was a child. Everything that she has learned, including the sign language that she later uses with Helen, she has learned at Perkins. At the age of twenty, Annie takes her first step out of the Perkins Institution and into her adult life.