The Theme of Death

Dillard vs. Gibson

McCarron English 11R
Miracle Worker connecting to Annie Dillard’s “Seeing”

The following quote reveals Gibson’s purpose for writing the screenplay:
I wanted to teach you-oh, everything the earth is full of, Helen, everything on it that’s ours for a wink and it’s gone, and what we are on it, the-light we bring to it and leave behind in-words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know – and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave. (104)

1. How do I insert the above quote into my essay?

2. How does the quote expose Gibson’s purpose?

3. What are the symbols Gibson uses in the quote and what do they stand for?

4. How does the sentence structure reveal Gibson’s purpose?

5. How does this relate to Dillard’s purpose in the excerpt, “Seeing” from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek?

ANNIE: Words stand for objects – “How, how, how can I tell you that this – means a word, and the word means this thing? (104)

Dillard – Before the operation a doctor would give a blind patient a cube and a sphere; the patient would tongue it or feel it and name it correctly. After the operation the doctor would show the same objects to the patient without letting him touch them; now he had no clue whatsoever what he was seeing. (25)

Dillard – “Form is condemned to an eternal danse macabre with meaning; I couldn’t unpeach the peaches,” (29) danse macabre – dance of death

Dillard – I’m told I reached for the moon; many babies do. But the color-patches of infancy swelled as meaning filled them; they arrayed themselves in solemn ranks down distance which unrolled and stretched before me like a plain. (29)

Director’s notes – a change in Helen’s face, some light coming into it we have never seen there, some struggle in the depths behind it…. (118)

ANNIE: Captain Keller’s concern for outward appearances rather than true self : Give them back their child and dog, both housebroken, everyone’s satisfied. But me, and you. (103)
Compare and contrast the ideas the above quotes are revealing.

Quotes for Class

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller

Interpret the quote and write a short paragraph explaining how it relates to The Miracle Worker.


The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so it is like the Tao.

Tao Te Ching

Is it all a dream? - Due Tuesday - Oct. 16

Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the big poppas of existentialism (Heidegger gets the official title), said life was like walking around a dark room looking for the light switch. There is no certainty and hope/faith is absurd.
For this blog, write a formal response in which you define existentialism in your own words (no copy paste from dictionary.com) Then imagine you are in that dark room (similar to Helen on a metaphorical level) and what would happen if you found the switch, and everything you thought you knew was wrong. Nothing looked the same, nothing was as you thought, and you have no idea how to process this new world. I want deep thinking. What is to be done? Minimum - 150 words.

Allegory of the Cave

Do you understand what you see? Is it real? Is there another type of vision? What if you woke up tomorrow, and discovered you had been misled, blind, and now, all was new, and real. What would you do? How do you know, how are you certain?

Time article for Homework - 10.3.2007

Read the following Time article from the link below about Helen Keller and bring in a Socratic Seminar question for Thursday's class.

Helen Keller