Close your eyes. Stand up. How do you feel? You are surrounded by darkness. You feel disoriented. Now imagine living the rest of your life like this. This was how Helen Keller, Erik Weihenmayer, and Uncle Jim lived the majority of their lives. The three of them overcame adversities in order to live like everyone else. However, Helen Keller had overcome greater obstacles. She lost sight at a younger age, was twin handicapped, and lived in an unsupportive time period for disabilities. Erik Weihenmayer lost his sight at age 13 and Uncle Jim was blind at age 7. Weihenmayer had the opportunities to experience the beautiful colours, shapes, and lines of a flower. He attended regular school where he could see how students’ smiles warmed up their faces or sleepless nights aged their faces. Uncle Jim could associate scents with certain object. When he was purchasing tobacco for his father, he did not know how to get to the shop. But he knew what tobacco smelled like, therefore succeeding in his father’s request. Helen Keller, on the other hand, was blind at the age of 18 months. Keller did not have the luxury to experience nature with her eyes, see people’s expressions change or realize everything had a name associated with it. Young Keller would not even have known that words existed. …show more content…
Unlike Weihenmayer and Uncle Jim who were only blind. When she lost her sight she also became deaf. This made learning words and speaking ten times more difficult than if she only lost her sight. Keller made it difficult for several tutors as she would often throw tantrums out of frustration. It was not until her teen years when her teacher Anne Sullivan made everything come together for Keller. Sullivan had Keller go to the water pump where Sullivan simultaneously pumped water out for Keller to feel and wrote water on her