Helen Keller's Rhetoric: A Necessary Development

     Helen Keller is one of the most iconic people in American history, and definitely a champion for the rights and social views of handicapped persons. Her rise to fame and development of an academic reputation came at  a time when not much was known about the handicapped, and education programs for them were in their infancy. Despite this, Keller managed to go on to become a hero to many women for her work, and not just the handicapped. Her accomplishments showed the world that someone who seems isolated from the world by their senses can still be communicated through the power of language.

     While reading Ann George's "Mr. Burke, Meet Helen Keller", I began to ponder and explore the idea of how Keller developed her rhetorical practices, and why she needed to. To begin, we need to go back to the way Keller communicated, because people will obviously learn to argue based on how they can talk with other people. I have always thought of rhetorical theory as being developed by how one can learn to arrange an argument, and how the argument was arranged in a text-based manner. Even if we are not writing, we think in terms of language, and that language is represented as written words. When a person thinks about a topic, they will "talk" about the subject within their own mind and lay out an argument. Now, to look back on this after reading about Helen Keller, I realize that I have taken the ability to read words with my eyes for granted, as this has allowed me to develop my thought processes by visualizing the text of words, which is kind of lazy compared to Helen Keller. Helen Keller's sensory input came from her sense of touch; it was through this medium that she could communicate with other people in the world. This brings up the question of whether or not she thought in terms of sign language? Did she have the ability to visualize at all? Because thought processes can really only rely on previous sensory experiences, then it is likely that she did not have this ability.

     Despite this, Helen Keller did indeed develop her own rhetorical practice, and she did it out of a necessity. As stated in the piece, Keller did this to defend her ability to have an opinion. It was not enough that she could speak out on certain terms, she needed to be able to defend those views in order to be viewed as credible by the public. This might seem a bit pedantic, as if it somehow is not enough for these critics that a woman with a sever sensory handicap who worked arduously to overcome this to be able to communicate should need to defend her right to have an opinion, but Keller was able to do this as well. What makes this remarkable is that Keller had to basically fill in the gaps of her own perceptions with imagined materials. Someone could explain the concept of war to her, and she not only had to try to relate to and understand the concept through her own perceptive manner, she had to then fill in and imagine the effects that war would have on society. This is what truly made Helen Keller's rhetoric a unique one; she is a shining example of the power of a terministic screen because Helen Keller's entire world was words. Words were all she could have to not only express her emotions and thoughts, but to gain knowledge on her surroundings. Most people's terministic screens are based on how their words and use of language affect their reality, but Keller's reality was her language.