The Story of My Life

Keller marks the arrival of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, as the turning point of her life. On March 3, 1887, shortly before she turned seven, Keller welcomed Miss Sullivan into her household.

On this auspicious day, Keller was aware of the unusual activity in the house and assumed that something was going to happen. As she writes about waiting on the porch, Keller reflects on the anger and bitterness that had begun to consume her life. She compares her state before her education as that of a ship sailing in a dense fog. That attitude changed with Miss Sullivan’s arrival, which Keller describes as “I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me (27).

Keller’s first lesson is accompanied by a doll that Miss Sullivan brought as a gift from the blind children at the Perkins Institute. With this doll, Miss Sullivan begins to teach Keller spelling and the meaning associated with objects, from “d-o-l-l” to “w-a-t-e-r.” Keller relishes the opportunity to learn this new method of communicating and understanding that “everything has a name” (28).