Details

Abstract / Summary

As a young blind girl, Georgina Kleege repeatedly heard the refrain, “Why can’t you be more like Helen Keller?” Kleege’s resentment culminates in her book Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller, an ingenious examination of the life of this renowned international figure using 21st-century sensibilities. Kleege’s absorption with Keller originated as an angry response to the ideal of a secular saint, which no real blind or deaf person could ever emulate. However, her investigation into the genuine person revealed that a much more complex set of characters and circumstances shaped Keller’s life. Blind Rage employs an adroit form of creative nonfiction to review the critical junctures in Keller’s life. The simple facts about Helen Keller are well-known: how Anne Sullivan taught her deaf-blind pupil to communicate and learn; her impressive career as a Radcliffe graduate and author; her countless public appearances in various venues, from cinema to vaudeville, to campaigns for the American Foundation for the Blind. But Kleege delves below the surface to question the perfection of this image. Through the device of her letters, she challenges Keller to reveal her actual emotions, the real nature of her long relationship with Sullivan, with Sullivan’s husband, and her brief engagement to Peter Fagan. Kleege’s imaginative dramatization, distinguished by her depiction of Keller’s command of abstract sensations, gradually shifts in perspective from anger to admiration. Blind Rage criticizes the Helen Keller myth for prolonging an unrealistic model for blind people, yet it appreciates the individual who found a practical way to live despite the restrictions of her myth.

Field of Interest

Disability Studies

Author

Georgina Kleege, 1956-

Copyright Message

Copyright © 2006 Gallaudet University Press

Content Type

Book

Duration

0 sec

Warning: Contains explicit content

No

Format

Text

Original Publication Date

2006

Page Count

224

Publication Year

2006

Publisher

Gallaudet University Press

Place Published / Released

District of Columbia

Subject

Disability Studies, Diversity, Race, Class, Sexuality & Gender, Advocacy and Rights, Independence, Education, & Accessibility, Learning, Communication, Blindness, Deafness, Gender, Class, Economic status, Raza, Clase, Sexualidad y Genero, Raça, Classe, Sexualidade e Gênero, Sexuality, Rights and advocacy, Social movements, Abogacía y Derechos, Advocacia e Direitos, Accessibility and Independence, History of Care, Independência, Educação e Acessibilidade, Independencia, Educación y Accesibilidad, Education, Helen Keller, 1880-1968, Post-war Era (1945–1960), Depression & World War II (1929–1945), World War I & Jazz Age (1914–1928), The Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1876–1913)

Keywords and Translated Subjects

Gender, Class, Economic status, Raza, Clase, Sexualidad y Genero, Raça, Classe, Sexualidade e Gênero, Sexuality, Rights and advocacy, Social movements, Abogacía y Derechos, Advocacia e Direitos, Accessibility and Independence, History of Care, Independência, Educação e Acessibilidade, Independencia, Educación y Accesibilidad, Education