It is one of those ironic twists of fate that most people know Helen Keller even mainly or only through The Miracle Worker. Throw out the name Helen Keller among any group of people of any but the largest size and chances are the only thing referential information anyone has is the famous play (or, more likely, the film adaptation of the play) that for all practical purposes isn’t really even about Keller. The main character is Annie Sullivan and though Patty Duke won awards for both her stage and screen performance as Keller, as a role it is really a bit less Helen Keller and a bit more the wild blind girl who must be controlled.
Of course, the play does sport a title about the teacher who wields the miracle and not the student. It is Sullivan’s backstory that informs the theatricality of the play and yields useful biographical information. There is no backstory necessary with Keller because the play tells her whole history up to the miracle. And therein lies the irony. Because in a way (and this is not meant take away from the considerable later achievements of Annie Sullivan in any way), Annie’s story reaches a climax with she makes that breakthrough with Helen whereas for Helen that very same moment represents the commencement of an extraordinary life.
A double irony really exists within the context of The Miracle Worker being the end-all and be-all of most people’s knowledge of the life of Helen Keller. Because of this circumstance, Helen Keller is recognized as an idea rather than a life lived. And that idea is the concept of overcoming the most impossible of difficulties to learn and live and make a difference. The reality is that for a great many of those who respect Keller because they have an idealized version of her she would actually represent an idealized version of everything they have been taught to fear and hate. Helen Keller was a Socialist. A real actually card-carrying Socialist, not what these people mean by socialist as a term that has been weaponized to use against anyone they hate. Helen Keller was the real deal and as a result held beliefs and convictions that were nothing at all like those espoused by Barack Obama. and many others termed socialist in a terminal case of misunderstanding.
Helen Keller went on from that moment that Annie Sullivan performed the miracle to work tirelessly for what may be termed radical, left-wing causes. (Although her questionable embrace of eugenics reveals she had a capacity for radical, right-wing causes if raised in the name of fake science.) Keller staunchly supported and engaged membership in the workers’ union that is almost synonymous with socialism in America, Industrial Workers of the World. She infamous delivered a speech espousing her opposition for the United States to enter the conflict which would become known as World War I on the grounds that it was nothing but a ploy by rich capitalists to further exploit and enslave workers. This particular moment of outspokenness earned the deaf, mute, blind and almost animalistic character in The Miracle Worker the need to beef up protective security in NYC by hundreds of police officers to ensure she wasn’t metaphorically—one hopes only that—lynched by those in opposition.
To know Helen Keller only through The Miracle Worker is better than nothing, of course, but it is kind of like knowing Darth Vader only through the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope. Those unfortunate people live in ignorance of the rich tapestry of the young boy Anakin and, of course, are completely oblivious to the fact that he is Luke’s father. There is so much more to know about Helen Keller and The Miracle Worker really isn’t even full enough to qualify as Act One in that long epic life.
