Georgina Kleege - Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller

Gallaudet University Press
Washington, D.C. 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
2006 by Gallaudet University

All rights reserved
Published in 2006
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 1-56368-295-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kleege, Georgina, 1956

Blind rage : letters to Helen Keller / Georgina Kleege.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-1-56368-371-8

1. Keller, Helen, 18801968Miscellanea. 2. Kleege, Georgina, 1956 Correspondence. 3. Blind-deaf womenUnited StatesBiography Miscellanea. 4. BlindPsychologyMiscellanea.

I. Title.

HV1624.K4A3 2006
362.4'1092dc22
[B] 2006014539

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, aNSI Z39.48-1984.

As always, for Nick

Contents

I wrote this book to exorcize a personal demon named Helen Keller. While most people revere Keller as a symbol of human fortitude in the face of adversity, to me she always represented an example I could not hope to emulate. She was both totally blind and profoundly deaf but managed to graduate from Radcliffe College, to publish numerous books and articles, and to travel the world as an international spokesperson for the blind. I am blind too, but not as blind as she was, and I have enjoyed many educational opportunities and employment advantages that were only dreams for her. Since I was a child, I have heard her name invoked as a reminder that I should be grateful for how lucky I was. I resented her for this, and suspected that her life, especially versions that appeared in my school books and in popular entertainments like The Miracle Worker, were too good to be true.

As an adult, I began to investigate her story more fully. I read her autobiographical writings and the many biographies published about her. I discovered many events and relationships that seemed at odds with what I had always been led to believe. But there was also something missing. It was as if her need to be an inspirational icon made it impossible for her ever to express any rage, fear or sorrow, even when her experiences would have prompted these emotions in anyone else. By turns, this baffled and infuriated me. I found myself conducting lengthy interior dialogues where I would question her at length about the thoughts and feelings I sensed she must have had while these events transpired. I describe them as dialogues, when in fact no answer ever came back from her. But she had become a very real presence in my imagination, defiant of my attempts to put words in her mouth, and eloquent in her silence.

This book re-creates these conversations through a series of letters. It is a one-sided correspondence that invites the reader to inhabit Kellers consciousness and respond in her stead to what I depict as some of the key moments of her life. Although based on facts, this is not a conventional biography or historical novel because those genres would keep her at too great a distance. Instead, I have written letters to her that allow for some intimacy between us, some exploration of our shared experiences and sensibilities.

Sections of this book appeared in slightly different form in Gendering Disability (Bonnie G. Smith and Beth Hutchison, eds.), The Michigan Quarterly Review, and Southwest Review. I am especially grateful to Willard Spiegelman whose publication of the first fragment of this book, also titled Blind Rage, gave me the confidence to continue.

Maureen Novak and Beth Ina were my reading and research assistants for this project. They read me all of Kellers work and a great deal of secondary material. Their mingled voices remain in my minds ear, imbuing Kellers writing with their intelligence and energy.

I am thankful to Melanie Rae Thon for her early encouragement of this project. Brenda Brueggemann has been a tireless source of ideas and friendship.

Many other friends and colleagues have read or heard portions of this book and offered insights and inspiration. Among them, I especially want to thank: Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Catherine Kudlick, Kim Nielsen, Tom Couser, Anne Finger, Simi Linton, Sue Schweik, Katherine Sherwood, Paul Longmore, Corbett OToole, Lynn Bloom, Mark Willis, Jean Stewart, Laurie Block, and Harilyn Rousso.

Ivey Wallace and Deirdre Mullervy at Gallaudet University Press have managed the publication process with efficiency and grace.

Finally, this book would not have been written without the support and love of my husband, Nick Howe. He had the generosity to share our life with Helen Keller, and helped me to pursue my obsession at home and on the road.

Blind Rage

February 3

Dear Helen Keller:

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a writer and part-time English professor. I am American, married, middle-aged, middle class. Like you, I am blind, though not deaf. But the most important thing you need to know about me, and the reason for my letter, is that I grew up hating you. Sorry to be so blunt, especially on such short acquaintance, but one of the advantages of writing to a dead person is theres no need to stand on ceremony. And you should know the truth from the start. I hated you because you were always held up to me as a role model, and one who set such an impossibly high standard of cheerfulness in the face of adversity. Why cant you be more like Helen Keller? people always said to me. Or thats what it felt like whenever your name came up. Count your blessings, they told me. Yes, youre blind, but poor little Helen Keller was blind and deaf, and no one ever heard her complain.

I am not alone in this. Many disabled people think you did our cause a lot of harm. Your life story inscribes the idea that disability is a personal tragedy to be overcome through an individuals fortitude and pluck, rather than a set of cultural practices and assumptions, affecting many individuals that could be changed through collective action. Lately, for reasons I cant entirely explain, my feelings about you have mellowed. It occurred to me that I should not hold you responsible for the use others made of your life story. This led me to dip into your autobiographical writing for the first time. Even more surprising, it led me to take a road trip to visit your childhood home, Ivy Green, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. And I thought youd like to know what I found there.

I went with my husband Nick, who is almost always up for a road trip. We took the house tour, which was standard fare for a local-hero museum. The guide was a woman pushing sixty, probably a volunteer, apparently reciting a script. She rattled off a number of facts about the town, the region, and antebellum architectureall the predictable stuff.

Then, in one of the downstairs rooms, she pointed out a carpet on the floor that had been woven especially for you by I forget whom. She explained all this, then said, Isnt it lovely? We murmured agreement. Then she said, Too bad Helen Keller never saw it. Her voice had a throaty throb as she delivered the line. I realized that the statement was supposed to catch us up short, jar us out of our complacency, remind us that you were deaf and blind. We were supposed to feel grateful and lucky, and intone a private prayer of gratitude: I wake each day and thank the Lord I was not born Helen Keller.