The story of Helen Keller

Helen Keller said: "How wonderful it would be if people regarded every day of their lives as the last day of their lives!" Why did Helen say this?

Answer: Because people tend to be tired in life, find it difficult to understand the meaning of every day, and lack enthusiasm for life; also to highlight the central idea.

Born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA.

In January 1882, he became blind and deafened due to scarlet fever.

Anne Sullivan became Keller's teacher in March 1887.

In June 1899, she was admitted to Radcliffe Women's College of Harvard University.

1902-1903 wrote and published "My Life" (some translated as "The Story of My Life").

Graduated from university with honors in June 1904.

1908–1913 Author of "My World" (also translated as "The World in My Life"), "Song of Stonewall", and "Out of the Dark".

Suffered marital misfortune in 1916.

In 1919, he was invited to Hollywood to star in a movie.

In 1924, he became the main leader of the American Foundation for the Blind.

In 1929, he wrote "The Second Half of My Life" (also translated as "Midstream - My Later Life").

Traveled to England in 1930.

Received an honorary degree from Temple University in 1931–1933. Visited France, Yugoslavia, and the United Kingdom.

Teacher Anne Sullivan passed away on October 20, 1936.

From 1942 to 1952, he visited thirteen countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

In 1953, the documentary "The Invincible Man" about Keller's life and work was released in the United States.

In 1955, he wrote "Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy" and won an honorary degree from Harvard University.

In 1959, the United Nations launched the "Helen Keller" world movement.

In 1960, the American Overseas Blind Foundation issued the "Helen Keller" scholarship.

Won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

Died on June 1, 1968.

"My Life", "Song of Stonewall", "Out of the Dark", "Optimism", "Teacher", "If You Give Me Three Days of Light", "The Second Half of My Life", "My World"

Text background knowledge

1. Mark Twain said that there were two great figures in the 19th century, one was Napoleon and the other was Helen Keller. Helen Keller is the author of this article. Although she has been blind since childhood, she has won the highest honor for American citizens, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was also selected as one of the ten outstanding women in the world. Why is a disabled person so respected? Read the text carefully and it is not difficult to get the answer. If you can read several of her autobiographical novels, I believe you will feel that Helen Keller deserves these honors.

2. "Give me three days of light" is Helen Keller's ardent hope. Will this text, full of imaginative energy and passion for life, trigger your thinking about life, life, life and other issues? So, what is the emotion and reason shown in this prose? What kind of life enlightenment does it give us?

3. As a lyrical prose, this article does not have as many ingenuities or rhetoric as other prose. Instead, it uses line drawing throughout to describe the earnest, sincere and candid inner activities in a straightforward manner. Although it sounds like homely words, it is extremely contagious and inspiring. Please read it over and over again, savor it carefully, and tell me where does this contagious and inspiring power come from?

Explanation of key and difficult points

Summary of key points

1. Basic knowledge

(1) About the author: Helen Keller. American female writer and educator. He fell ill when he was young and became deaf in both ears and blind in both eyes. When she was seven years old, Anne Sullivan served as her tutor and became her mentor and helpful friend, staying with her for 50 years.

With Sullivan's help, she studied at Cambridge Girls' School in Massachusetts, and then entered Radcliffe College in Cambridge, graduating with honors in 1904. She wrote her first book "The Story of My Life" while in college, describing how she overcame the disability and inspired not only the blind but also thousands of normal people. This book has been translated into 50 languages ??and circulated in countries around the world. She later wrote articles for many magazines and several autobiographical novels, "The World I Live in", "Coming Out of the Dark", "My Faith", "Midstream - My Life Later" and "May We "With Confidence," in which she showed that darkness and silence do not exist. Keller later became an outstanding social reformer. She gave speeches throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia to raise funds for the education of the blind and deaf-mute. During World War II, he visited many hospitals to express condolences to blind soldiers. Her spirit is respected by people. In 1964, he was awarded the highest honor for American citizens, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The following year she was elected as one of the ten outstanding women in the world.

(2) Writing ideas: This article only excerpts the main part of the original work, but it is still too long. If you don’t clarify the ideas, it will be time-consuming and laborious to read, and it will be difficult to appreciate. Very good effect. To grasp the idea of ????this article, you can think about the following two questions:

If she was given three days of light, what would Helen Keller do? We can clarify the author's writing ideas based on the content of the article.

Daytime

Night

The first day

Visit Mrs. Macy, invite friends over, take a walk in the woods, and watch the sunset

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Remember this day

The next day

Visit the Natural History Museum, visit the Art Museum

Watch a play

No. Three days

Visit New York City and see the everyday world

Watch comedy

Next we can explore why the author chose Look at these things rather than other things. We can be clear that this mainly reflects the author's thoughts and feelings:

First of all, Helen Keller personally felt the love she received from the people around her as a blind person, especially Mrs. Macy's love for her. The cultivation of care, as well as the true love of the world reflected in Mrs. Macy, the strong perseverance and human compassion to face difficulties firmly, so Helen Keller has extremely sincere friendship for the people around her, hoping that Being able to see the external features that represent their inner beauty shows how kind she is.

Secondly, the Natural History Museum and the Art Museum respectively reveal the material achievements and spiritual progress of mankind. The reason why Helen Keller wanted to visit these places was because she wanted to see a brief introduction to the earth and its inhabitants. History, through which we can explore the human soul and see the various forms of the human spirit, shows Helen Keller's enterprising spirit.

Once again, Helen Keller cared about the everyday world and hoped to spend an ordinary day among everyday people and learn something about their lives through observation. Helen Keller saw many scenes in real life and regarded the joy and pain of others as her own joy and pain. This also showed her philanthropic spirit and strong desire to communicate with the outside world.

2. Key points of appreciation

First, let’s talk about the thoughts and feelings that the author wants to express. This article mainly reflects two aspects of thoughts and feelings. The first is an exhortation to the world. What the author wants to tell us in the article is that although most people have normal talents - sound facial features and limbs, they do not realize the value of this talent and do not feel the nature. Instead of wasting time in laziness, the author advises people to make full use of their eyes and other senses as if they would become blind tomorrow, to feel the beauty of life, to be happy people and to live fully. people.

The second is to express his inner world. Although the author is disabled, his character and personality are beautiful. Although the author faces various difficulties that others think are insurmountable, he faces the bad luck with a smile and overcomes it with tenacious perseverance. Difficulties, outstanding achievements show the value of a disabled person's life. At the same time, we can also feel that the author is in darkness, longing to communicate with human beings and gain love from the world, and also wants to express his fraternity to the world through this article. From a disabled person, we see the most beautiful soul and the kindest nature of mankind.

Let’s talk about rich imagination. The content of the article "If You Give Me Three Days of Light" is entirely based on the author's imagination. In fact, the author lives in darkness and silence, with no memory or feeling of sounds or colors. She perceives the world entirely through touch. The range of perception is very narrow, and the understanding of the living perceptual world is very little. The author first develops a hypothesis and then lays out the activities for three days. The so-called activities are purely fictional, but the author prefers to fictionalize scenes and things that she cannot see or hear. For example, the author does not know what the brilliance of the sun is, but writes about it many times. In fact, behind the rich imagination, we can see the author's passionate heart: he has been eager to open the window of audio-visual perception throughout his life; he also wants to speak out from his own experience and give advice to the world.

Finally, let’s talk about simple and sincere language. This article uses a lot of line drawing techniques to describe one's inner world directly, which is consistent with the eager, frank and sincere inner activities. This call from the heart has the magical power to infect and inspire people. From an aesthetic point of view, this article shows a unique simplicity of beauty.

Analysis of Difficulties

The difficulty in studying this article is the appreciation of its delicate and vivid psychological description and sincere language expression.

To appreciate the delicate and vivid psychological description and sincere language expression in this article, you can select several representative passages for analysis. The reason for this is because writers always choose techniques according to the needs of the content, and then consider the language. A successful text often uses two or more techniques in a comprehensive manner, and contains the author's true feelings. . Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of representative passages is more conducive to improving literary appreciation.

For example, if Helen Keller was given three days of sight, she would first "gave a long look at the face of my dear teacher Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy" and "not only look at her "Study that face carefully and find in it the vivid traces of sympathetic tenderness and patience." Helen Keller "looked at" Mrs. Macy like this in order to always remember her and recognize her gentleness, patience and strength of character, which fully demonstrated Helen Keller's gratitude and respect for Mrs. Macy.

For another example, the author imagines the scene of sightseeing in New York on the third day. What is revealed between the lines is her admiration for the power and intelligence of the human soul, and her praise for New York City. There is the following paragraph in the article, "I always open my eyes to care about joy and sorrow, so that I can deeply explore and further understand how people work and live. My heart is full of longing for people and things, and I don't I will easily let go of any small thing and strive to capture and grasp everything I witness. Some scenes are pleasant and make you feel happy, but some scenes make you feel sad and melancholy. Nor will I close my eyes, because after all, they are also a part of life. Closing your eyes on them is equivalent to closing your heart and imprisoning your thoughts." Here, in the only three days of light in the author's imagination, Helen Keller It does not avoid the dark side of life and the contradictions in life, but has the courage to face reality, showing its philanthropic mind and desire to understand real life, which can also be regarded as the author's advice to all her readers.

Text Reading Guide

Example The incorrect understanding of the following sentences is (c)

A. "If You Give Me Three Days of Light", the title of the text shows Helen's inner desire for light and her optimism about life.

B． "I want to see those kind, gentle, friendly people who make my life valuable." Helen puts friends in the most important position, which shows that she has a warm and friendly heart.

C. "At midnight, my temporary relief from the pain of blindness will end, and the eternal night will cover me again." It means that the happy time will go away from "me", and life will once again fall into the painful despair of boundless darkness. middle.

D. "But my mind will be so full of those wonderful memories that I won't have time to regret it." This sentence reveals that "I" will not complain about the injustice of fate because of the short light, and will cherish those beautiful "three days". Face the future with a smile.

Analysis This question tests the understanding of the sentences in the text, so it is necessary to analyze the sentences based on reading. This article does not use a very profound artistic conception to express emotions, it is simple and simple, and the overall emotional tone of the article is the love and desire for life. If your understanding of the text is too superficial, it may mislead your thinking. A． B. All items D can capture the emotional tone of the article and express the author's sincerity; while the sentences in item C must be understood in the context of the language environment. The author may have regrets, but he is not desperate. Therefore, the analysis of item C is not accurate.

Answer: Choose option C.

Insights If you only choose based on your own superficial understanding, you may choose option D.

Expand and extend inquiry

Read the following and complete the two questions at the end of the article.

Ferry yourself

In life, there are sunny days, cloudy days, rainy days and snowy days.

On the road of life, there are smooth roads, but also there are ferries without boats and riverbanks without bridges.

Trouble and depression are often like thunderstorms in summer, suddenly floating over and soaking the heart. Frustration and suffering often come unexpectedly, and you are knocked down before you even have time to sigh.

Falling on the shore of frustration, the shore of suffering, surrounded by boundless darkness, without lights, stars, or even the breath of human beings. Terror and despair stretched out their hands from the darkness and clamped tightly on the poor life. Some people fell on the shore and never got up, and some people made themselves a boat in the dark and ferried themselves to the other side.

Shi Tiesheng, who suddenly lost his legs at the age of 20, broke a boat for himself. This is a ship named "Writing". It was after he saw through that "death is something that there is no need to rush, and it is something that you will not miss no matter how much you delay" that he folded the boat for himself in the soft chair and ferried himself away from the temptation of death. Come out and "decided to try to survive."

Stephen Hawking, who was studying for a doctorate but suffered from motor neuron disease and could not speak or move, had a dream in which he was executed. After waking up from the dream, he suddenly realized that if he was pardoned, he could still do many valuable things. So he folded a thought boat for himself and sailed into the mysterious universe to explore galaxies, black holes, quarks, "flavored" particles, "spin" particles, and the arrow of "time"...

The boat hastily folded on the shore of suffering has become the road to salvation for unfortunate fate.

Perhaps we will not encounter such a catastrophic disaster in our lives, but we have never been able to get rid of the entanglement of despair! One of the torments in life is survival, and the other is love. They often suddenly roll across in front of you like turbulent waves. You are so distressed that you can't find the bridge to the past, and you are so miserable that you can't find the boat to cross. Who doesn’t encounter this kind of despair with no way out several times in life?

When we know that suffering is the normal state of life, and troubles and pain always accompany life, why should we feel sorry for ourselves, give up early, and despair early?

Some people fold their survival instinct into a boat to ferry themselves out of the abyss of despair; some people fold their new desires into a boat to survive the pain and depression after setbacks. Some people fold hope into a boat and sail through the overlapping darkness. Those who really have no boat to cross will have to work hard to ferry themselves to the other side, even if they use their imagination to build a small boat.

Maybe we have never experienced the pain of emotions, the blow of failure, or the despair of having no way out, but there are often dark winds and rains on sunny days. It flaps its wings like a black crow and makes a noise around you, which is enough to ravage a good mood into chaos. At this time, we also need a boat to ferry ourselves. This boat may be to go to a concert, maybe to pick up a book, maybe to send an email to a netizen I have never met on the Internet, maybe to put on a travel bag and go out quietly.

Therefore, no matter how gloomy the destiny is, no matter how many ups and downs there are in life, there will always be a ferry boat, and this boat is often in our own hands.

1. Compared with "If You Give Me Three Days of Light" and "Ferry Myself", what are the differences in language style between the two? What are the absolute similarities in the philosophies of life contained in the two texts?

2. Among the following options, the one with incorrect understanding of the passage is ( )

A. "Fell on the shore of frustration, on the shore of suffering... Some people fell on the shore and never got up. Some people folded themselves a boat in the dark and ferried themselves to the other side." Use metaphor. The method reveals the attitudes that different people will adopt when faced with the misfortune of life, focusing on the positive spirit.

B. "Perhaps we will not encounter such catastrophes in our lives, but we have never been able to get rid of the entanglement of despair!" This shows that we are always accompanied by despair in our lives, as the philosopher said: "Man is born to suffer. ."

C. "So, no matter how gloomy the fate is, no matter how many ups and downs there are in life, there will always be a ferry boat, and this boat is often in our own hands." It tells us that we may encounter many storms and waves in our lives, but as long as we If we don’t give up, we can help ourselves find the direction and get out of the haze.

D. "When we know that suffering is the normal state of life, and troubles and pains always accompany life, why do we need to feel sorry for ourselves, give up early, and despair early?" The words are both reasonable and reasonable, telling us that we should have the courage to face life head-on. The language is very Infectious and inspirational.

Answer

1. The language of "If You Give Me Three Days of Light" is extremely straightforward and colloquial, like a family conversation; while "Ferry Myself" uses prose language, which is more elegant and subtle. Both articles contain the philosophy of facing the ups and downs of life with strength.

2. Choose option B.

Tips: The understanding of text should not stay at the superficial level, but should dig deeper into the intention and emotional tone of the article.

Proposition Trend Analysis

When studying this article, you should focus on appreciating the delicate and vivid psychological description and the sincere language expression. This can be done from the following aspects:

1. Appreciate the delicate and vivid psychological descriptions. From the above introduction about Helen Keller, we can see that although Helen Keller was disabled, her character and personality were beautiful. Although she faced various difficulties that others thought were insurmountable, she still She can face adversity with a smile, overcome difficulties with tenacious perseverance, and show the value of a disabled person's life with outstanding achievements. At the same time, we can also feel that the author is in darkness, longing to communicate with human beings and gain love from the world. It is precisely because of this that in this article, Helen Keller used delicate and vivid writing to express her inner world, her desire for a better life, her strong love and ardent hope for the world.

2. Analyze the content of the work and grasp the author's emotions. The article "If You Give Me Three Days of Light" was written in the first person by Helen Keller. Although the content of the entire article is fictitious and the things described are unrealistic, the author pours out her praise for life and expresses her attitude towards life in the article, making us feel a higher reality, that is Emotional authenticity. The reason why the article can deeply touch us is not only its rich imagination and smooth writing, but also its sincere and strong feelings, and the open-hearted intimacy it gives readers.

For example, the author imagines herself looking at a work of art, and uses words such as "observe carefully", "let the eyes enjoy", "capture" and so on to describe the degree of her fascination. She even says, "How happy I will be if my eyes work." to embark on this fascinating research work."

3. Understand the role of contrast in the text. In this article, the author uses people with sound hearing and hearing to compare himself with himself. The entire article is written using a comparative technique. For example, when imagining herself visiting the Museum of Natural History in New York, Helen Keller wrote: “I wonder how many of my readers have ever looked closely at the full range of the vivid objects on display in that exciting museum. Of course not everyone has this opportunity, but I would venture to say that many of you who have eyesight can spend countless productive days there but don't take advantage of it. In the short three days when I could see something in my imagination, I could only take a quick glance at it and then leave. "In this passage of contrasting text, we can get such a revelation, what people need to know about life. Have a strong sense of urgency. Without this attitude, although we have sound hearing and vision, we may not be able to see anything. With this attitude towards life, you will find that a beautiful new world is opening up in front of you. In contrast, the author clearly expresses his attitude towards life.

4． Think about meaningful sentences. Many sentences in the article, for example, "Because in the long darkness of my life, the books I have read and the books others have read to me have become a great beacon of light, revealing to me the deepest aspects of human life and the human spirit. "Source", "However, someone told me that for many of you who have sight, the world of art is a dark night, a world that cannot be explored and difficult to find light", etc., which are full of poetic and philosophical meanings and have exhortations. role.