When you are reading a book; or at least trying to understand the plot you must be familiar with the characters. So in the play The Miracle Worker there are two main characters Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. As already mentioned after a serious illness Helen became blind, deaf and mute. She is raised by her parents Kate Keller and Captain Keller. They seem to be loving parents but they simply cannot manage Helen's moods and attacks. Helen does not know what is wrong or right and that is why she acts rather like a feral child than a young lady. Unfortunately her parents are unable to teach her any manners so they decide to call for help.
Annie Sullivan is a young woman who is brought to Keller's family in order to tutor Helen. Annie is partially blind and because of that she is determined to teach her a different way of communication.
All others failed. Will she be successful ???
Other characters that appear in the play:
James Keller- Hellen’s brother
Anagnos- Annie’s councelor and mentor
Percy, Martha, Vinnie- servants
Aunt Ev- a matron
I can't even imagine how a blind, deaf and mute person must feel.. and how can she communicate? Is Annie going to teach her something by using the sense of touch? That must be freaking hard!
OdpovědětVymazatYou are right. It was hard because Helen thought that they played a game. She did not know that those signs, Annie was drawing on her palm, were words. The play actually ends when Helen realizes the true meaning of those "funny" signs. Here is a really interesting video about Helen Keller, first part is about the communication and from 1:53 you can listen to old Helen speaking about her life. :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ch_H8pt9M8
OdpovědětVymazatIris, thank you for the link. Do you have any other materials that you found useful? I teach The Miracle Worker to MYP2, and certainly wish I had thought to look some of this up while we were reading it. Do you have anything that you think would be particularly interesting that you could send me? It would be greatly appreciated.
OdpovědětVymazatI am so sorry for my late respond Mr. Healy. I guess my help is not needed anymore. Anyway I have seen some really cool videos about Helen and Annie. I did not save the links but it was pretty easy to find them.
OdpovědětVymazat