Two of the most important women to Helen Keller were her mother, Kate Keller, and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Both women have thing in common, they both are strong willed, cared for Helen dearly, and both answered to Captain Keller, Helen’s father, but one of the biggest thing the two had were their differences. Both ladies came from different backgrounds, had differing personalities and had different Status’ especially in social and marital status. Both women were very important to Helen. This is portrayed in William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker.
Let’s start with one of their differences, their backgrounds. Annie Sullivan, according to the play (Act 1, while Annie and Anagnos are talking, flashback when Annie is in her room and again later in the play when Annie and Helen are together) comes from a poor background, the North and grew up in almshouse. Sullivan became blind from a bacterial infection called Trachoma. Sullivan had a younger brother named Jimmie, who died when they were young. This is implied when Annie has flashbacks throughout the play. Kate Keller on the other hand is from a wealthy background in the South. She married Captain Keller, had Helen who became blind and deaf when she was young ( Act 1, lines 16-25), and later had…show more content… Annie is unmarried and part of the working class. Annie works for her money and must listen to Captain Keller. Kate is married and part of the upper class (she can afford to have servants). Kate’s husband works to pay for what they have and Kate must listen to Captain Keller. If you noticed Annie and Kate have that in common. They both must listen to Captain Keller. That is the only similarity in between the two for their status’ in life. Their status’ are affected by the time period and place. Before marriage it was considered to be okay for a women to work. After, on the other hand, it was not. Either way the ‘Man’ of the household was to be listened to, especially in the
