Examples Of Trust In The Miracle Worker

Picture this; an individual is walking into a place that they have never been before. They are expected to work miracles and teach somebody who is blind, deaf, and mute. There is a family relying on them to be able to teach their disabled daughter. This person is wondering how this can even be possible. The answer: trust. The story of Helen Keller—a blind, deaf, and mute child—and Annie Sullivan—Helen Keller’s teacher or governess who is also legally blind—proved that anything is possible and William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker depicted this quite perfectly; without trust between all of the characters, Helen would have never learned that everything has a name. In essence, the concept that trust is an incredibly important factor is clearly

To begin, Act I of The Miracle Worker displays many acts of trust, whether they are positive or negative. As a matter of fact, the first instance of this comes in Scene 1 of the entire play. This scene had a one-and-a-half-year-old Helen Keller who is being looked at by doctors after contracting a deadly disease. The doctor says that Helen will be okay and that “by morning she'll be knocking down Captain Keller’s fences again” (Gibson 495). Oblivious to what was to come, the Kellers thought to just trust the doctor; they would be surprised as to what the outcome of this illness would really be. Their beloved daughter, Helen, was blind and deaf. Unfortunately, this act of trust in the doctor had a negative outcome, however there are many positives that come with trust in the drama. The next showing of trust in Act I occurred in Scene 3; this scene had Aunt Ev, Helen’s aunt, telling Captain Keller to write to the doctor in Baltimore to help Helen. Captain Keller, unsure about this notion, disagrees with Ev due to the fact that he does not want to be disappointed again. However, after some pressure

The first indication of trust in this act occurs when Annie and Helen are sitting in their room. Annie was writing a letter when Helen spills ink everywhere. Instead of growing frustrated and angry, Annie takes this as a moment for teaching; Annie spells the word “ink” into Helen’s hand. This leads to more and more learning in that room until Kate walks in. Kate questions this by asking if Helen actually understands or if she is just mocking the fingers; she makes it sound like Helen is impaired. Annie responds to this by exclaiming, “[T]here’s nothing impaired in [Helen’s] head, it works like a mousetrap!” (515). By saying this, Annie is making it clear that she trusts that Helen is not dumb and that Helen is learning or will be learning soon. Furthermore, another showing of trust happens in a scene that had quite a large battle between Helen and Annie. This scene has Annie locking herself in the dining room with only Helen. Annie’s goal in this battle was to make Helen show obedience, discipline, and manners. After Annie watches Helen shove food into her mouth with only her bare hands, she forces Helen to eat her breakfast with a utensil. Helen was not onboard with this plan and it took many tries for Helen to eventually take in the food: “HELEN suddenly opens her mouth and accepts the food” (523). Even though it took a lot of tries, Helen finally agreed that it was best to trust that eating the food properly was the