Helen Keller and Richard Rodriguez Synthesis Analysis

Have you ever feel left out or estranged? If so, American authors Richard Rodriguez and Helen Keller can sympathize with you. Richard Rodriguez was born in San Francisco but is the child of Mexican immigrants. The first language he learned was Spanish. Helen Keller was born in Alabama and after 19 months she became deaf and blind. These events influenced how and what they wrote about. In this case both Rodriguez and Keller write about feeling isolated from society, due to their inability to communicate and describe how they learned to adapt to the external world.

Keller￢ﾀﾙs hardships begin the moment she turns 19 months old. Due to some unknown illness, she loses her senses of sight and hearing. She isn￢ﾀﾙt able to communicate clearly with anyone until one day when she is almost seven years old. Up until this point in her life Keller has felt like a ship ￢ﾀﾜat sea in a dense fog, [and it seemed like some] white darkness shut [her] in￢ﾀﾝ. (Keller 101) All of this changes the day her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is introduced to her. Keller anxiously waits on her porch for her teacher to arrive. When Ms. Sullivan finally arrives, Keller greets her by ￢ﾀﾜ[stretching] out [her] hand￢ﾀﾝ. (Keller 101) Anne Sullivan takes her hand, and from that moment she feels a special connection with her.

The next morning, her teacher comes back to her house and brings her a doll that had been sent from the Perkins Institution. Keller plays with the doll for a while and then Ms. Sullivan spells the word doll in her hand to try to have her make the connection. This catches Keller￢ﾀﾙs attention and soon she is learning how to spell stuff. The only problem with this is that she doesn￢ﾀﾙt really comprehend what she is being taught. After, Ms. Sullivan tries teaching her the difference between a mug and water but fails to do so. Keller has trouble distinguishing the meaning between them so she becomes frustrated to the point at which she shatters her own doll on the floor. After this...