As she falls asleep, the curtain drops on act 2 while Anne sings to her. Anne lures her out, however, by spelling words into the hand of a servant, and Helen starts to trust her again. Helen isn’t excited about living with Anne, and throws a fit, not allowing Anne to touch her. The Kellers drive Helen around for awhile to confuse her, then take her back to the yard, where a garden house appears. The idea behind it, she explains, is to make Helen completely dependent on her for everything, so that she doesn’t have her parents and family to hide behind. Kate and Auntie Ev convince him to let her stay a little longer, and the family strikes a deal with Anne, who wants to isolate herself and Helen from the rest of the world. The victory is short-lived, however, as the Captain wants Anne out of his house, not supporting her methods and treatment of his daughter. The fight that ensues between Anne and Helen is a long one of epic proportions, but it results in a victory: Anne got Helen to eat with a spoon, and she got her to fold her napkin. Anne wins, and the rest of the family begrudgingly head outside. She wants the child to learn in general, to learn manners as well as language, and the Captain believes she’s overstepping her bounds. Anne won’t let this fly, sparking a conflict between the Captain and Anne. When prodded further, she simply responds “I like to hear myself talk.” That night, Anne is visited once again by her tough past with the orphanage and her departure from her brother.Īt breakfast the next morning, Helen starts her daily routine of self-propelled terror.
Anne claims that she wants Helen to understand that everything has a name, and once she gets there, she will be able to learn. Kate, confused, asks her why she keeps doing it, that the girl is only mimicking her, not actually learning. With every item that Helen breaks, Anne forces her hand into the girl’s palm, spelling out each item. Act 2Īs the curtain opens up in act 2, Helen is wreaking havoc on Anne’s room. Rather than getting mad, Anne smiles and goes back inside the house. After they eat dinner, Anne spots Helen at the water pump and well, where the girl drops the key to Anne’s room down the well. Anne is forced to give in and ask for help, and climbs out the window by ladder. But Helen outsmarts her, hitting Anne in the face with the doll and locks her in the room. She tries to quell the child’s tantrums by spelling into Helen’s hands whenever she wants something, namely ‘cake’ and ‘doll’. When she meets Helen, she immediately drags her upstairs, eager to get to work. When she gets to Alabama, the family is a little apprehensive about her, mainly because of her age and her stubborn attitude. He died as they were separated from each other at an orphanage, and the memory of that constantly visits her. She is young at 20, and haunted by visions of her younger brother Jimmie. In the next scene we see Anne packing and preparing to leave the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where she was not only a patient, but seemingly a teacher as well. He finally relents, and they decide on Anne Sullivan, a governess from Massachusetts. Kate, however, is steadfast, and won’t give up on her daughter. The Captain believes that hiring more would simply be a waste of time and money, and would rather accept her tedious nature. We discover that they have hired many doctors to attempt to help her, but to no avail. The Captain and Kate are arguing, mainly about what to do with Helen. Further inspection shows that they would rather spoil her with treats, in a similar manner to the way one would train a dog.
#The miracle worker act i how to
She terrorizes everyone in the house, and she gets away with it all because no one knows how to discipline her.
She is around six years old, and is now the king of the house. In the next scene, we see that Helen has grown up a little. She assumes that because of the illness, Helen is now unable to see or hear. As the Captain escorts out the doctor, Kate notices that something is awry with the baby. The sickness that she had nearly killed her. Kate and Captain Keller, along with a doctor, are standing next to a crib, discussing how the Keller’s daughter, Helen, survived a difficult ailment. The plot begins at night on a plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama. It follows the Keller family and their struggles with their daughter Helen, who is deaf, mute and dumb and Anne Sullivan, a young teacher. This play, The Miracle Worker, is set in the 1880’s.