Miracle Worker

  

 

We had watched a movie from last Wednesday during the Human Communication lecture class. The title of the movie is " The Miracle Worker". The Miracle worker recounts Helen Keller's discovery of language , through the teaching of Annie Sullivan, after losing her sight and hearing in early childhood. I like the way that follows Helen's progress and pursues her clown the road beyond that water pump. When Annie first encounters Helen, the child has never been discipline. Isolated in silence and darkness, Helen wanders the house and is prone to tantrums. Annie has herself been institutionalized, so she sympathizes with the urgency Kate feels about Helen. Annie is also blind. so she knows partly what Helen's world is like. She knows that the key to Helen's transformation is language. Annie succeeds in teaching Helen to finger-spell several words, realizing that her pupil understands this activity only as a memorization game. Helen does not understand that the sequences of letters have meaning. Meanwhile, Annie begins the task of teaching Helen manners. Lacking words, Helen expresses her emotions through actions, smashing objects when she is angry and striking people when frustrated. Annie responds with patience and determination.










The Keller family must also be taught to help Helen. Out of pity and guilt, they have allowed the child to rule the household, as Annie observes. To avoid enraged outbursts, family members indulge Helen's misbehaviour. With difficulty, Annie persuades the Kellers to give her two weeks of isolation with Helen in the garden house. During this time, she makes progress only to see it erode upon returning to the main house; family members are unwiling to enforce the new rules.

In a crucial encounter, Helen pours out a pitcher of water in rage; Annie takes her forcibly to the pump to refill it and out of habit finger-spells 'water' as Helen feels liquid gush over her hand. Suddenly, Helen understands that things have names, and that she can learn them through this new game and communicate her inner world to others. In the closing scene, Kate, Helen, and Annie go to the Perkins Institute. Helen is no longer isolated.