The Story of My Life

by

Helen Keller

Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan Character Analysis

Helen Keller’s teacher, Miss Anne Sullivan, was the most profound influence on Helen’s life and her dearest companion. Miss Sullivan came to Tuscumbia, Alabama in the spring of Helen’s sixth year, and Helen writes of her arrival in reverent terms and Biblical allegories. Miss Sullivan set about teaching Helen sign language and the manual alphabet right away, and after a short period of false starts and adjustments, Helen experienced a breakthrough when Miss Sullivan held Helen’s hand beneath a water pump and signed the word “water” into her palm. From that moment on, Helen became a voracious learner, excited to acquire as many words and expressions as she could and impress both her parents and her beloved teacher. Miss Sullivan was Helen’s constant companion throughout not just her childhood, but her college years and even beyond. When Helen, toward the end of the novel, concludes that the story of her life has been made as interesting and wonderful as it is solely by virtue of the friendships she has known, it is Miss Sullivan who tops the list of her most profound influences and most steadfast friends. Miss Sullivan is patient and kind, but also challenges Helen, and introduces her to the beauty, majesty, terror, and wonder of nature. Miss Sullivan is closely related to the memoir’s major themes of determination and perseverance, storytelling and communication, education, and friendship, community and goodwill.

Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan Quotes in The Story of My Life

The The Story of My Life quotes below are all either spoken by Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan or refer to Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Determination and Perseverance Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall, away from the once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day. But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare. Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came—my teacher—who was to set my spirit free. But during the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, “the day is ours, and what the day has shown.”

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Kate Adams Keller
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her—there is not a talent, or an inspiration or a joy in me that has not awakened by her loving touch.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan
Related Symbols: Nature
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I would not rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School. This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of March, 1890. Miss Fuller’s method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in an hour had learned six elements of speech. Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never forget the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, “It is warm.” True, they were broken and stammering syllables, but they were human speech. My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and face. […] As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Miss Sarah Fuller
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Story of My Life LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Story of My Life PDF

Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan Quotes in The Story of My Life

The The Story of My Life quotes below are all either spoken by Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan or refer to Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Determination and Perseverance Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall, away from the once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day. But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare. Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came—my teacher—who was to set my spirit free. But during the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, “the day is ours, and what the day has shown.”

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Kate Adams Keller
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her—there is not a talent, or an inspiration or a joy in me that has not awakened by her loving touch.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan
Related Symbols: Nature
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I would not rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School. This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of March, 1890. Miss Fuller’s method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in an hour had learned six elements of speech. Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never forget the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, “It is warm.” True, they were broken and stammering syllables, but they were human speech. My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and face. […] As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.

Related Characters: Helen Keller (speaker), Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Miss Sarah Fuller
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis: