Notes
Hannah Higgins
Darian Bianco
ENG 101
Due Date: 1 April 2024
A Rhetorical Analysis of Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came Into My Life”
Imagine you are going through life in darkness and in silence- you have no tangible thoughts or understanding of much of anything, because you cannot see or hear. Then imagine the day that you are met with language for the first time- the groundbreaking revelation that there are words and phrases, and now everything in your life has taken on a new meaning. This is Helen Keller’s exact experience one evening in 1887 as she begins to understand that language exists. Through demonstrating her authority to speak on this subject with her personal experiences, brief use of logos, and primary use of emotional appeals in her piece “The Day Language Came Into My Life”, Keller effectively argues that language is quite literally the foundation for our lives in every way.
As the majority of Americans know, Helen Keller famously lived blind and deaf since infancy from a case of Scarlet Fever. What is perhaps most astonishing are the things that she would go on to accomplish in her lifetime. With the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan, she learned that language existed- point blank. She went from a world of darkness and silence to reading and writing in 1887. Who could be more credible to speak on the importance of language than a woman who was blind and deaf herself? Keller states, “I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought” (Keller 147). Reading of her personal experiences gives readers the understanding that if anyone understands and can convey the importance of language in one’s life- it is Helen Keller, for her life was entirely changed by it.
The use of another appeal, logos, is a bit harder to find in her piece, but is there. She establishes logic in a unique way- she first presents the illogical, or some concepts that are hard for readers to wrap their heads around. For example, Keller explains how incomprehensible things were while being blind and deaf with no understanding of language, stating, “Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkeylike imitation” (Keller 146). The idea of understanding almost nothing is crazy to readers, for instance how can one form thoughts when you simply don’t know that words exist? Was it even possible for Helen Keller to have an internal monologue, and what would that have looked like? It is through establishing the illogical to readers that the logic of how language changes every aspect of life is established. By understanding the difficulties of life without language, readers can recognize that yes, all of these things would be revolutionized by understanding language.
The final, and arguably strongest, appeal used in this piece is Pathos. It is so prevalent in the writing and implemented so seamlessly that the whole writing piece is incredibly emotional in many different ways. Readers start the emotional journey by feeling a sense of sorrow fall over them after Keller explains how she felt before language in the opening paragraphs, stating, “Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was” (Keller 146). Just like a ship with no sounding-line, Keller had no idea what was around her- literally no visuals of the people and things that surrounded her or the words to shape these things. Her intense, bleak word choice combined with this metaphor gives us a huge glimpse of how lonely her life must have been while so detached from the world and the people around her.
Another very strong example of Pathos evokes a very different emotion from readers, and that is the conclusion of Keller’s writing. As she vividly explains the moment she knew that the words Anne Sullivan had been spelling into her hand and that she had been imitating had a real meaning, readers are rejoicing for her and are overcome with a heartwarming presence. It seems as if a miracle has taken place because her whole world shifts, “I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free… as we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life” (Keller 147). The people that she knew cared for her and she cared for back became mother and father, the thing she slept on became a bed, the cool air she felt on her face became the wind- understanding the lengths to which this changed her world is what makes it truly moving, and the audience feels this through her writing.
Through the use of all three appeals, Helen Keller is able to establish the importance of language in one’s life while taking readers on the emotional journey that was her life before Anne Sullivan introduced language- at which point she was changed forever. Logos can be found through the understanding of how detached her life was before versus after she understood language, and by using her personal story, she not only establishes credibility to convey this importance, but implements pathos while pulling at readers heartstrings. It is through the cohesive use of these rhetorical appeals that makes her piece so effective, and the immense importance of language understood.
Keller, Helen, “The Day Language Came Into My Life.” The Commons, Eastern Kentucky University, pp.145-147.
A Rhetorical Analysis of Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came Into My Life” by Hannah Higgins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0.
