Summary
The final part of this memoir is a supplementary account by the editor that was written at the time of its publishing, providing an account of Helen's life and education based on the perspective of the people around her, particularly her teacher. The editor, John Albert Macy, was a Professor of English at Harvard who became a close friend of Helen's and assisted her with her autobiography. He begins by acknowledging the unique challenges Helen faced when writing this autobiography: once she typed out a section of the work on her typewriter, Helen could not review it; she would have to have someone read it back to her through the manual alphabet. He also notes Helen's receptiveness to criticism from friends, incorporating many of their suggestions.
The first chapter of this section discusses Helen's personality. She is animated and expressive when she speaks, and her memory for people based on touch is remarkable. Her most characteristic trait is her humor, specifically in her mastery of wordplay. Her perseverance and ambition are also notable personality traits, and the editor comments that "her life has been a series of attempts to do whatever other people do, and do it well" (pg. 119). She enjoys music even though she cannot hear it, partly in a sympathetic way (because others around her are enjoying it) and partly because she can actually feel it through the vibration of the objects she is touching when the music is played.
Helen gets most of her sensory information first-hand through touch, though her sense of touch is not as well trained as that of other blind people because so much of her education has been focused on honing other skills. She also relies heavily on her sense of smell. She is sympathetic, fair, logical, an optimist, and an idealist.
The next chapter discusses Helen's education. It begins by telling the story of Laura Bridgman and her teacher, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, because their work pioneered the work Anne Sullivan did with Helen. Laura lost her sight and hearing at two years old, as well as her senses of smell and taste. She learned to understand language through raised labels that her teacher pasted on objects, thus showing what a deaf-blind person's brain is capable of interpreting. The major difference between Helen and Laura, however, was that Laura's education was constantly an object of scientific study; Helen, on the other hand, moved so fast and learned so quickly that her teacher rarely stopped to record or analyze her progress.
This chapter also familiarizes readers with Miss Sullivan's own life. She became almost totally blind early on in life, and began studying at the Perkins Institute. Later on, her sight was partially restored, and she graduated from Perkins in 1886 less than a year before moving to Alabama to begin teaching Helen. Early on in Helen's education, Miss Sullivan grew angry when newspapers greatly exaggerated her progress with Helen: the two began to get prying attention, both negative and positive, from people around the world whom they did not know. As a result, she kept silent to the press for a long time. It is important to note that, during Helen's education, Miss Sullivan had full authority over the decisions she made and the methods she used; she solved problems without assistance and did not allow anyone else to interfere. So, much of Helen's success must be attributed to the determination of her teacher.
The rest of this chapter contains reports written by Miss Sullivan detailing her progress with Helen. The first was written three days after her arrival in Tuscumbia, and talks about Helen's enthusiasm when she first saw her teacher. She also makes note of the trouble she has with Helen, who is argumentative and easily frustrated in her early days of learning. Shortly after she arrived, Miss Sullivan requested that she and Helen go to live alone in the family's little garden house a quarter mile away from their home, so that she could teach Helen to depend on and obey her separate from the family. The letter from March 20th, 1887 details the moment language finally clicks for Helen and she understands what she is learning; Miss Sullivan is extremely excited.
In Helen's early education, Miss Sullivan makes a point not to give her scheduled lessons, instead choosing to teach her at all moments throughout the day so Helen does not even realize she is learning. She treats Helen as she would treat a two-year-old learning language for the first time through imitation and repetition. Though Helen learns extremely fast, Miss Sullivan has occasional doubts about her own readiness for the great task of teaching this young girl. At one point, however, she discloses her secret, deep belief that she will succeed in teaching Helen beyond what anyone imagines she can, because Helen is a remarkable child.
Miss Sullivan spends her reports narrating many of the same events that Helen did in Part I of the memoir, like their first summer in Boston. There are many other experiences she relays that Helen did not talk about earlier, such as visits to the circus. She also comments often on Helen's temperament, noting her agreeableness, her eagerness to learn, and her love of interacting with other children. According to Miss Sullivan, by 1890, Helen begins showing an insatiable interest in religion and a desire to read the Bible, spurred on by the religious beliefs of those with whom she frequently interacts. This collection of Miss Sullivan's reports ends with her analysis of the way Helen has learned language—by practice, rather than by study of rules and definitions.
Macy, the editor, notes that many have analyzed Miss Sullivan's reports, and while he will not add much to the analysis, he does point out that they prove Helen's education has been fundamentally about learning language the way any other child would, and the teaching methods Miss Sullivan used can be similarly used by language teachers of any child. He tries to answer a question he is frequently asked: is Helen's success due to her natural ability, or to the way she was taught? He insists that it is a combination of both: Miss Sullivan surely could not have successfully taught a child who was dull and uninterested in learning, but conversely, Helen could never have achieved what she did without an excellent teacher.
The next chapter of the editor's commentary talks about Helen's speech. She had a low voice that was pleasant to listen to, though lacking in sentence accent and variety in inflection. Another report of Miss Sullivan's is included here, detailing Helen's insistence that she learn to speak and the way she was able to do it by imitating the lip movements she felt on her friends. Finally, it includes a transcription of a speech Helen gave at a meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf in 1896.
The final chapter of this section talks about Helen's literary style, commenting on her unusually fine use of the English language in writing. It is clear that Helen's fine prose did not come from Miss Sullivan: while Miss Sullivan's reports are clear and accurate, they do not have a similar stylistic flare. Instead, Helen's beautiful writing was influenced by the very many books she read. It is also a result of how much she valued and cherished language, as she thought about it far more often than most. The rest of the chapter provides excerpts from Helen's writing, and includes the full text of "The Frost Fairies" by Margaret T. Canby, compared side-by-side with Helen's story, "The Frost King." This incident, while difficult for both Helen and her teacher to endure, made it clear how fine English is acquired through exposure and imitation.
Analysis
Just like Helen's letters in Part II, this final section was included in the autobiography because it adds an entirely new dimension to Helen's story. Up until now, everything we have heard has been from Helen herself, whether in the form of her reflective prose as she looks back on her life or her own personal letters written at the time when these events were occurring. However, in many cases Helen is remembering events that happened when she was extremely young, and on top of this, there are certain logistical elements of her education that she, as the student, cannot fully explain. For these reasons, this additional editorial section was included to give context to Helen's own recollections and allow Miss Sullivan's voice to come through.
In the sections before this, Anne Sullivan has been a mysterious heroine figure in Helen's life, entirely devoting herself to her student, with little information given about her life or who she is as a person. Now, a bit of Miss Sullivan's own backstory is included in this final section for the first time. That she had a similar ailment to Helen early in life—her blindness—is a critical piece of information to understand Miss Sullivan's motivation for being such a passionate teacher for a deaf-blind student. She has given up much of her own personal life in order to guide Helen, because she knows that education has empowered her and will have a similar effect on this young girl.
Miss Sullivan's own account of Helen's education is extremely enlightening—particularly the portions that are capitalized, because they explain her teaching approach. Miss Sullivan did not spend her time figuring out how she could cater to Helen's unique difficulties; instead, she poured her energy into figuring out how Helen was like any other child, and the ways she could be taught that were similar to how any person would learn language. Some of her most important teaching points—e.g., allowing students to ask questions, teaching according to which topics engage the students' interests most—are universally applicable in any classroom, and a modern-day teacher reading her commentary can glean a lot of important guidance from the realizations she makes.
But this editorial section also covers some of the darker aspects of Helen's early life, ones that she herself did not often pick up on, both because of her disabilities and her age. Progressing as rapidly and astonishingly as Helen did meant that she was constantly being observed and judged by outsiders. Her story was often twisted and manipulated, even by friends, to attract attention, and sometimes the attention she got was negative: people questioned Miss Sullivan's teaching methods, and whether or not they were being truthful about Helen's accomplishments. It is clear that, in her youth, Helen's family, friends, and teachers attempted to shield her from this as much as possible, but this could only foreshadow an entire life and career to come that would be spent in the spotlight. Helen's experience sends an important message: fame sometimes comes at a price.
With its additional outsider commentary on Helen's personality, her background, and her education, this final section of The Story of My Life makes it clear that Helen's immense success was a perfect combination of mental drive, an incredible teacher, and privileged circumstances that allowed her to receive the education she did. Helen's fortitude and dedication carried her through countless challenges, but as she herself realizes, the help of others in her life played a huge role in carrying her towards success. This memoir makes a powerful, poignant statement about overcoming adversity with the right mindset and a support network equally determined to bring your achievements to fruition.
