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The Story of My Life

by Helen Keller

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Helen Keller's Challenges and Fears in Writing Her Autobiography

Summary:

Helen Keller faced significant challenges and fears when writing her autobiography, The Story of My Life. She was apprehensive about accurately recalling her childhood, fearing that her adult perspective might distort her memories. She worried about the possibility of idealizing her past and inaccurately representing events. Keller was also haunted by an "impish fear" of unintentional plagiarism, stemming from a previous incident with a story she wrote. Despite these challenges, she aimed to inspire others by sharing her journey of overcoming blindness and deafness.

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What fears did Helen have when starting to write The Story of My Life?

Helen was nervous about writing a biography because she didn’t want to look back on the events of his childhood too closely.

We often have fond memories of our childhood that may or may not be accurate.  Helen’s fear when writing her autobiography was that she would look too closely at the events of her youth, and things would not be as she remembered them.  Sometimes we remember with rose-colored glasses.

It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. (Ch. 1)

This superstition was that the magic of childhood would be lost by examining the memories as an adult. You may realize that things were not perfect, or not as good as they seemed.  Some things may not have happened as...

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you remembered.

Helen also found that she did not have as many early memories as she would like, except for big events, because at the time she was writing her memories of more recent events were stronger than those of early events.

Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. (Ch. 1)

Despite all this, Helen Keller still wrote the story of her life.  She believed that people would be interested in hearing about how she overcame the challenges of being blind and deaf.  Her memories of learning how to communicate and cope with her limitations were part of her story, alongside the memories of growing up that everyone has regardless of whether they can see or hear.

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Why does Helen Keller find writing an autobiography difficult in "The Story of My Life"?

The Story of My Life is an autobiographical account of Helen Keller's first twenty two years. Helen wrote it for two reasons. She knows how privileged she is to have been introduced to so many inspirational and life changing people, such as Ann Sullivan "who set my spirit free" (Ch 1) and Alexander Graham Bell  who helps her "pass from darkness into light" (Ch 3) and, she is making an attempt to reach out to others and somehow lead them to personal success. If she can do it, a blind, deaf girl from Alabama, then anyone can.

However, writing an autobiography, Helen explains is difficult because "lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist" requires complete honesty and sometimes " fact and fancy look alike" when Helen must factually represent her struggles. Helen knows she has an active imagination so must tread carefully and ensure she does not confuse the two.  

It is not easy to remain objective but Helen, in an effort " not to be tedious" attempts to recall the events that will have the most impact and carry the most importance.  It could also be a painful experience  as Helen explains her silent, aimless, dayless life" (Ch 2)  and yet she must tell it honestly, including the unfortunate incidents and not only her successes.

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Why does Helen Keller start her story with "It is with a kind of fear"?

Helen Keller begins her story with these words because she harbors doubts about her ability to tell her story accurately.

Helen confesses that, from where she stands, "fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present." It is quite often the case that the child's impression of events differs from that of the adult's. Helen admits that "the woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy." She is perhaps alluding to the fact that it is difficult to accurately represent events from long ago. Either the "joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy" to the adult mind or the "many incidents of vital importance in...early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries."

What Helen means is that, at present, she is as much afraid of idealizing her past as she is of being inaccurate in her narrative as she tells her story. Last, but not least, she doesn't want her story to bore her readers, so she says that she will "try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem...the most interesting and important."

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Why does Helen Keller express fear when beginning her autobiography in The Story of My Life?

Keller begins by articulating her fear of writing her life story, saying that autobiography is a "difficult" task. She goes on to observe that an adult looks at childhood through a different set of lenses than a child does. She fears that in writing her memoirs she won't be able to accurately convey a sense of what it was like for her to be a child. As she puts it:

The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy.

She notes the child's "joys and sorrows have lost their poignancy," meaning that it is impossible to feel the emotions of her childhood as acutely as she did at the time. She also worries that she will have forgotten a good deal of what happened to her in childhood.

Because of the many ways an adult can distort events as she looks back on them, Keller says she will try to include only "sketches" of what stands out in her memory as most "interesting and important."

In terms of evaluating this opening statement, it is important that Keller is self-aware enough to know that her adult self will have a difficult time writing an accurate memoir. This raises the credibility of the autobiography, in my opinion, because it suggests that Keller will be careful to be as accurate as possible. It also indicates she will try as hard as possible not to impose her adult consciousness on the child's mind, all the while being upfront about the impossibility of completely recapturing the experience of her younger self.

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In The Story of My Life, why did Helen feel "an impish fear and disquietude" while writing?

Having recovered from a debilitating illness as a baby, Helen Keller is left blind and deaf. Her parents are often "grieved and perplexed" and search endlessly for ways to help her, as revealed in The Story of My Life, Helen's autobiography. To show her appreciation for all the support she receives and for the opportunities presented to her by many "friends," this book serves as a motivational tool to show that no obstacle is too much to overcome.

Annie Sullivan, Helen's beloved teacher, has helped Helen in her efforts and "My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage" (ch 13) and she has even learnt the basics of speech. Helen, encouraged by Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the "late foliage"(ch 14), writes a story entitled "The Frost King" for Mr Anagnos of The Perkins Institute which is very well received. Unfortunately, it turns out that she must have heard the story of the "Frost Fairies" by Margaret Canby to the point that she is accused of plagiarizing it. Helen is hugely affected by this and "the thought of those dreadful days chills my heart"(ch 14) and despite Margaret Canby's graciousness, and the fact that Helen uses this experience as part of her learning "The thought that what I wrote might not be absolutely my own tormented me."(ch 15) It is this "impish fear" that  "clutched my hand, so that I could not write any more that day. And even now I sometimes feel the same uneasiness and disquietude."

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