Miracle Worker Thesis

Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, once said, “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” This theme is portrayed in William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, an inspirational play about how Annie Sullivan taught Helen Keller, a blind and deaf young girl to communicate. Persistence is needed to reach goals—in order to accomplish anything in life, persistence is needed. Each character faces conflicts throughout the play. However, the audience watches them overcome their struggles by not giving up and persisting. Clearly, persistence is crucial to achieve success. To start, the audience witnesses persistence exceptionally in Helen during Act I. The stage directions bring to life the following: “HELEN is poking her fingers inside his

To start, Annie’s mindset is extremely helpful; while talking about Helen, she says, “Simply go on, keep doing what I’ve done, and have—faith that inside she’s—That inside it’s waiting. Like water underground. All I can do is keep on” (539). In essence, Annie is describing Helen and describing her thoughts on teaching her. The viewers can truly see how determined she is—throughout the frustrating journey of teaching a blind and deaf child language, Annie has not given up. While teaching Helen, she tries signaling for her mother but Annie tells her: “No, she’s not here. Pump!” then the stage directions show the reader: “[ANNIE] forces HELEN’S hand to work the handle, then let’s go. And HELEN obeys'' (542). She is focused and her diligence is working. Helen is obeying her. In this same scene, Annie is explaining to her: “Water. W, a, t, e, r. Water. It has a—name—” then: “the miracle happens…[HELEN’S] lips tremble, trying to remember something the muscle around them once knew till at last it finds its way out, painfully, a baby sound buried under the debris of years of dumbness” and Helen says: “Wah. Wah'' (541). To summarize, in this scene, Annie continues working hard and teaching Helen then finally, she reaches progress nobody thought was possible. After feeling water pour out from the water pump, she realizes what Annie was trying to say.