The Miracle Worker: A Play

by William Gibson

NO ONE COULD REACH HER Twelve-year-old Helen Keller lived in a prison of silence and darkness. Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born of furious, unknowing desperation. Then Annie Sullivan came. Half-blind herself, but possessing an almost fanatical determination, she would begin a frightening and incredibly moving struggle to tame the wild girl no one could reach, and bring Helen into the world at last....

Genres: Plays, Classics, Biography, Nonfiction, Drama, School, Theatre

120 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

William Gibson was a Tony Award-winning American playwright and novelist. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1938.

Gibson's most famous play is The Miracle Worker (1959), the story of Helen Keller's childhood education, which won him the Tony Award for Best Play after he adapted it from his original 1957 telefilm script. He adapted the work again for the 1962 film version, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay; the same actresses who previously had won Tony Awards for their performances in the stage version, Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, received Academy Awards for the film version as well.

Reviews

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No One Could Reach Her"

I went to this play and read this book when I was in grade 4. It had a huge impact on me. It was all I could talk about for weeks. I wanted to go see it again and again. It will always be one of my favorite plays. Another friend just posted a review of Helen Keller's autobiography and I look forward to reading that one too. I would love to see this play with my daughter.

I remember watching as Helen got so upset when she couldn't express herself and fought those who tried to help. The rages she flew into. I was transfixed by all of it. Hired by Helen's family, Annie Sullivan starts to work with Helen and slowly helps her learn to communicate and express herself. This was no easy task. Helen lashed out at Annie (apparently even knocking a couple of Annie's teeth out during a rage). However, Annie was determined to help this girl who she had grown to love. She was not only going to help Helen communicate but also to live.

I remember some of the boys teasing me because I was crying and usually I would have been so upset but I barely heard them.

After we saw the play we read the story in class. As I got older I read it a few more times and always found it so inspirational and heartwarming.

Such a wonderful memory.

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Video Review, and general update

Does anyone know a play on GoodReads with a higher average rating than this? Is this the world's greatest play?

I read the 1957 telefilm script and didn't think it was anything special, and I think that's mainly because I didn't know it was based on a true story. Also, not being American, I'd never heard of this before, and I picked it up on a whim at a library. I think the 'true story' aspect has overhyped this play.

I personally struggle to understand how this play could have a massively higher average rating than Death of a Salesman, and a higher rating and readership than most other plays — 'Hamlet', 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'Twelve Angry Men', to name a few!

It's nice and inspiring that stories like this happened in real life, but it's sad that this is the best stage adaptation for them. I go into slightly more detail with my specific criticisms in the video review. I believe playwrights can and should do better than this, to do justice to the reality it represents. I don't mean to be unpleasant or take away from the inspiration this story gives to people, but I just want to caution everyone to consider whether this truly is the world's greatest play. Is every sentence and scene perfectly constructed — is the script thrilling, gripping, engaging, memorable? Or is it that reading culture just hasn't found a way to be critical of the construction and appeal of 'true stories', or even of works with clearly strong social value? Must we only write memoirs, or stories with more social justice than reality, to be bestsellers in the modern day?

This review is awkward and uncomfortable because I don't want to sound like I don't find the true story inspiring (it is ironically that which I feel I am trying to do justice). I like that stories can empower people and bring light on people who have been disadvantaged by society, and I find a lot of American fiction does this excellently. I just am a bit lost with the reception to this one, as reading it without reference I came here expecting to write this 2* review without feeling so out of place.

With all the above, my rating and review clearly opposes the norm, so I definitely could be missing something here. Maybe you'll need to read the play to find out!!

[Meg Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite plays... the story of Anne Sullivan breaking through the darkness and silence of Helen Keller's world to teach her the very concept of language. It reads incredibly well, but if you must see it in action, check out the classic film version with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke and absolutely DO NOT WATCH THE REMAKE. It is craptacular to the extreme. I just finished a run at the Hale Center Theater in Orem playing Helen Keller's mother Kate and it positively changed my life forever. I do love a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

FAVORITE MONOLOGUE:

(Anne Sullivan) I wanted to teach you--oh, everything the earth is full of, Helen, everything on it that's ours for a wink and it's gone, and what we are on it, the--light we bring to it and leave behind in--words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know--and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play brings back a lot of memories for me. I acted in a production of it in high school. I played a bit part, spoke a single line, and was on stage for one scene. But it was a big thrill to be involved in it, and gave me a love of acting which persists to this day.

[Emily D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I must have read this play back in middle school or high school, but then forgot I read it. It is very much worth a re-read. It is such a beautiful and moving true story and it means more to me now that I have little children of my own and think about it from a mother's perspective. I want to read more of the story of Annie Sullivan now as well and what happened to her poor little brother.
I'm so glad I decided to (re-) read this one!

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read but it could be dry and reading it as a script from a play was a little strange for me.

[Himanshu Karmacharya · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For two weeks. I’ll give you two weeks in this place, and it will be a miracle if you get the child to tolerate you. "

Tasked with an extraordinary challenge, Anne Sullivan set out to teach Helen Keller, the fundamentals of language and discipline. Inspiring and heartwarming, The Miracle Worker makes the readers feel like miracles are indeed real.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a reread, I read it in 8th grade for English class and then we got to go see the play. I reread this for a prompt on a challenge I'm doing and the prompt was a book you read in school. I loved this just as much as I did in 8th grade. Such a great story.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

if annie sullivan and helen keller can do what they did.....well, stop complaining.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان کودکی هلن کلر در همان اوایل آموزشش توسط سولیوان و در اصل نشان دادن تقلا و تلاش این شخص و نتیجه ای که در نهایت داد، بود.
نمایشنامه کوچک ولی قشنگی بود.

I wanted to teach you—oh, everything the earth is full of, Helen, everything on it that’s ours for a wink and it’s gone, and what we are on it, the—light we bring to it and leave behind in—words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know—and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave.
And I know, I know, one word and I can—put the world in your hand—and whatever it is to me, I won’t take less! How, how, how, do I tell you that this—
(She spells.)
—means a word, and the word means this thing

حالا گویا یه سری اقتباس خیلی خوب هم داره ببینم میام راجع بهشون میگم.
(این سری دقت کردم که حتی تگ نمایشنامه هم برا خودم درست نکرده‌ام اینقدر که به نسبت کم میخونم.)

شهریور ۱۴۰۴

[kinley grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Νατάσσα · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το είχα δει στο θέατρο πριν μερικά χρόνια, έπεσε τυχαία στα χέρια μου το βιβλιαράκι. Τρομερά συγκινητική, βαθειά ανθρώπινη ιστορία.

[Valerie]

My paternal grandmother lived in Kansas City in the early 20th century. The music halls in Kansas City were cheap and accessible in those days, and many widely-known figures would come to play in Kansas City.

Helen Keller was one of those players. My grandmother said that Helen had to have an interpreter present on stage, not only to convey questions to her, but to interpret her spoken words, since Helen never really mastered speaking well enough to be understood by strangers. At the times my grandmother saw Helen, the companion was not her beloved Teacher, but Helen's sister, Mildred.

I've read many versions of Helen's story, and so I'm not sure whether the significance of this sister is included in the play. As Helen herself later recounted, Helen came in and found her baby sister lying in the crib Helen was accustomed to put her own doll in. Helen unceremoniously dumped her sister out of the cradle (fortunately, somebody witnessed the incident, and caught the baby as she fell), and put her doll in the cradle.

It was this incident that made the already frantic efforts of Helen's family to get a cure for her all the more desperate. It was because her family had refused to believe there was no cure for her blindness and deafness that they had insisted on a cure INSTEAD of having her educated. Really she should have begun getting tuition immediately after she lost her sight and hearing (at 19 months). It wouldn't have done any harm even if she were curable, but if there was no cure, it was essential.

When they reached the stage of desperation, they took Helen to see Dr Alexander Graham Bell, who agreed with other doctors that Helen's disabilities were not curable: but who pointed out that it was possible to educate her.

The play tells more about Annie Sullivan's history than most sources (taken from her letters, probably), though it doesn't go on to deal with other things (such as that Annie was not 'formerly' blind. She had to tend her eyes very carefully even in this period, and had to have operations to restore her sight several times afterward), because they're after the period of the story.

I have to say that I do understand the urgency of the situation. Though it's not true that Helen had learned nothing before (she had developed a sort of gestural pidgin, which was probably more effective than anybody gives it credit for), if it had been left much longer, it's doubtful Helen would have been able to develop the remarkable linguistic skills she later had. She might have been able to learn a little language (Laura Bridgman, the first recipient of training in fingerspelling, was limited in her linguistic capacities, and this may be because she was already eight when her teaching began), but it's unlikely that Helen would have gotten as good at it as she did.

Nevertheless, I can't go along with the people who argue that the cruel treatment Annie meted out was justifiable. Granted, Annie was quite young at the time, and she hadn't really been given much training in education methods. But still...there were no doubt better ways to teach even an obstinate child like Helen. A preliminary study of the pidgin Helen and her family had developed would have been a good start.

The 'miracle' in the title is well-described by Helen in her own works. It's a little disturbing that the vital word had to go back to Helen's early verbalizations, however. Helen had, after all, her own sign for 'mother'. But it's interesting in another way. Most children's realization that language has meaning happen so early they don't remember it: Helen, at seven, remembered it clearly, and was able to reduce it to very evocative words.

In fact, focusing on the 'miracle', however much of a breakthrough it truly was, in many ways falsifies the picture. Except when Helen insisted on learning to speak (because she wanted to be able to communicate with people who didn't understand fingerspelling), Annie Sullivan was involved, as translator, tutor, and aide, in all of Helen's vigorous attempts at self-education through college. Annie insisted that she couldn't teach speech to Helen, so it was farmed out. But one thing that Annie DID teach Helen in this period was how to read and write. This was done not only via Braille, but also with a form of block printing, and with type-like wooden blocks; and later, Helen learned to use a typewriter. Helen's first letters were as crude and inept as most of her age-mates'. But she very soon mastered the smooth literary style that made her so skilled at communicating.

The main problem with this play is that it leaves Helen frozen in time as the electrified child. Helen Keller turned seven in 1887, and she didn't die until 1968, a few weeks before her 88th birthday. She wrote the classic Story of My Life to help pay for her college education. She was quite renowned in her childhood (she was friends with Mark Twain, who died in 1911), but her life didn't end with her childhood. One measure of how little the real woman was known is that people either never knew, or forget, that the adult Helen was a co-founder of the ACLU. Helen Keller was never in her life the 'angel on the hearth' of Victorian fantasies. She didn't stop being strong-willed when she learned to communicate: frustration didn't make her stubborn; rather stubbornness made her frustrated, since she wouldn't give up, and couldn't succeed. Mastering language help alleviate the frustration, but not the obstinacy.

In her later life, Keller became a fairly well-known advocate of radical causes: but this fact is often ignored in stories about her. A postscript added to the play might not go amiss--or an introduction with further information. I'm pretty sure the edition I read (which I don't think was this one) didn't have this sort of biographical information.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago. I have always been interested in Helen Keller's life. I find her to be a remarkable lady. "The Miracle Worker" is a play. a well known one that still has productions today. it is about Helen when she is six years old. blind and deaf and acts like a "wild child" Annie Sullivan is hired to teach her. over the month she tries to teach Helen language throughfinger spelling. Helen must also learn manners and to behave in a more acceptable way. a tall order for Annie Sullivan who has had many eye surgeries to have sight. this is a wonderful play and the fact that it is based on real life people and facts from their lives it is a wonderful book. I have seen the miracle worker on stage and the wonderful movie version with Patty Duke and Ann Bancroft reprising their stage roles. a very good play. if anyone finds Helen Keller's and her teacher Annie Sullivan life this is a great play.

[Esther | lifebyesther · Rating 3 out of 5]

GENERAL:
- focuses on Anne Sullivan and her early efforts in educating Helen Keller
- encouraged me to add Keller's autobiography to my tbr

LIKES:
- extremely moving, extremely powerful.
- the added part about Keller's half-brother, James, was interesting. I wasn't expecting that.
- Similarly, the part about Sullivan's brother, Jimmie, was extremely moving and artfully set up.

DISLIKES:
- the story was the compelling aspect, not the writing.
- I wish the pacing had been different. The whole narrative was moving towards one singular moment, and after that moment happened, the play abruptly ended.
- I also wish there was more about James. He was so angry throughout the whole play, and provided such a different perspective than the other characters. I wish they had focused in on him more.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plays can sometimes be difficult to read for me. To go from conversations to stage direction, reading notes on lighting etc, sometimes make for disjointed reading. But that was not the case with Gibson's play. I was instantly absorbed and drawn in, and it didn't waver at all. This was easily a 5 star wonder!

[Mabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars!

so interesting! I love reading plays because there's a lot of vague but direct descriptions of the set and what's going on. this lets you imagine more. especially since it's a play, my mind was just working thinking about lighting and different effects- it opened up a different picture in my head when reading.

characters:
the cast of characters in "The Miracle Worker" focused mainly on Anne, Helen, and the two parents, "Keller" and Kate. obviously Anne and Helen are the stars, but the relations between the parents and their son James I found compelling. although he's characterized as the mean, sarcastic older brother, he has a lot of moments at the end that really showed his true character: he stands up to his father Keller and sides with Anne, which I'm sure would've been hard since his father constantly downplays him.

what i liked:
many of the lines are just very dull without much action (as it should be in circumstances) so when a character would say a very sarcastic or smart line, it was hilarious! maybe it was also the older language and advanced terms (at least for me).

after reading, I researched Anne's early life. I learned, contrary to the book, she wasn't raised in a mental asylum with bodies on the floor and croons harassing her. though she was raised in poverty and very poor. the random flashes of backstory made the play hard to put down because very little backstory was originally given for Anne. I found this side of her very meriting of her view of the Kellers, how to teach Helen, and just life in general. she wants Helen to just learn how to communicate so her parents don't feel compelled to send her away just like Anne's did to her.

[Jadyn Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read it for English.

It was good.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Miracle Worker" was first a great play and then a great movie with Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft. It seems to me that Broadway used to produce more excellent works like this one.

I read it for a high school English literature course. The teacher chose it to illustrate to the class how texts get rendered on film. I found the exercise very useful.

Rather than read this one, I would suggest watching the movie which is really very startling.

[Slayermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of Helen Keller who was born a healthy little girl, but after falling ill with a childhood ailment she becomes Blind, Deaf and Mute. I found the story very touching, especially as someone who works with children. The Keller family hires Annie Sullivan to come and help teach Helen, and they are surprised to find Annie herself suffered from Blindness and is only 20 years old. Annie had her work cut out for her as Helen had been so spoiled and lacked all forms of discipline as the parents felt sorry for her and indulged her every little whim. This caused Helen to turn out wild and more like an animal then a little girl. Annie not only had to find a way to get through to Helen, but also to re-teach the family how to deal with the child, and how to change their views on what Helen is capable of.
This is a fabulous story, and it’s very inspiring. Never judge a book by its cover.

I remember having to read this in High School as well, and I had completely forgotten all about it until I picked it up again at a bargain book store. I think I enjoyed it more this second time around. Being older and having more of an understanding and appreciation for the difficulties that Helen, Annie and the other members of the family actually went through.
This is a very fast read!

[Caleb Gerber. (Right makes Might) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play, written by William Gibson and later adapted into a movie of the same name, is short, readable, and at times humorous. It explores the life of young Helen Keller, offering a potential glimpse into what her experiences may have been like. The play also narrates the backstory of her teacher, the Miracle Worker. Half-blind herself and burdened by a traumatic childhood, Annie Sullivan is only twenty, inexperienced, yet determined. Can she work miracles?

The play is very well-written and an easy read. It features lovable characters, conflicting interests, and a vivid portrayal of life in the Southern United States during Reconstruction, highlighting the mutual prejudice between Southerners and Northerners. It also depicts how one woman can overcome her own disabilities and traumatic past to help another girl find the light.

In short, it is an excellent play—brief but a joy to read.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson

film only
pub 1956
autumn 2012
play dramatisation

The film, starring Anne Bancroft came out in 1962. Forty years on, those methods would not be allowed.
The full film is on YouTube: http://youtu.be/556xz3Mw7rw

3*

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine!

[Tamara Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Miracle Worker” is a play performed in three acts which tells the story of the special relationship that is formed between six-and-a-half-year-old blind, deaf, and mute girl Helen Keller and her twenty-year-old teacher Annie Sullivan.

In act one of the play, a doctor visiting the Kate and Captain Arthur Keller after the baby Helen has had an illness. After Helen’s father escorts the doctor out of their home, Kate makes the shocking and sad discovery that Helen can neither see or hear.

In the next scene, Helen is six and a half years old, and is unkempt. Helen is accompanied by two black children Martha and Percy and Helen attempts to learn about speech by touching the other children’s mouths and ends up in a fight. Although Kate wants to write for help with Helen, Arthur as well as her Aunt Ev and half-brother James feel that it’s more humane to send her to an asylum and focus on their other daughter Mildred.

Meanwhile, characters of Agnaos is introduced with Miss Annie Sullivan as she prepares to leave Boston via train. As Annie prepares to leave, Agnaos reveals that Annie was a former student at Perkins Institute who arrived not knowing how to spell her name but now leaving as a teacher. Unbeknownst to the Kellers, Annie has her own traumatic past of being virtually blind and losing her beloved brother Jimmy who was crippled as a young age.

Annie arrives at the Kelley’s home Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama and has a meeting with Helen. Although Arthur is apprehensive of Annie, Kate speaks glowingly of Annie and shares that Annie has had nine operations to be able to see. As Annie tries to teach Helen the deaf alphabet, James tells Annie that Helen is unable to learn and unaware that words having meaning. Act one ends with Helen having locked Annie in her room, much to the irritation of Arthur. Following her escape from the locked room, Annie becomes aware of how smart Helen is despite her family feeling that Helen is dumb.

In act two of the play, begins with Annie writing a letter about the lack of discipline given to Helen and her plans to teach her discipline without breaking her spirit. Arthur and Kate question Annie’s methods of working with Helen when she attempts to correct Helen’s wild behavior and threatens to send her back to Boston.

Upon Arthur planning to fire Annie, after realizing her blindness, he changes his mind. Annie shocks Arthur and Kate by suggesting that they give complete control of Helen’s life to Annie and live away in a garden house near their house and shares her background growing up in an asylum with her brother Jimmie. Arthur reluctantly agrees to Annie’s plan for on a two-week trial basis and if no progress is made, Arthur will send Annie back to Boston.

In act three of the play, Annie teachers Helen how to spell and while Kate is impressed by Helen’s improvement over two weeks, Arthur is less impressed and is ready to send Annie away. Despite Kate having hope of Helen being able to communicate with the world, Arthur feels it might be Helen’s destiny to not be able to communicate. Arthur eventually decides to keep Annie on as Helen’s teacher and the play ends with Helen finally being able to make the connect of words having meaning, much to the joy of Arthur and Kate.

As I finished reading this play, I had fond memories of growing up in Alabama and visiting Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s childhood in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Likewise, after reading this play, I was happy to read about Helen’s later life as a political activist and a lecturer. By reading this play, the reader sees a glimpse of the desolation and sadness that one can feel if they were unable to see, hear, or speak. Thankfully through Annie Sullivan’s influence in Helen Keller’s life and that through determination and persistence, lifelong change was able to occur.

[Anna Sobczak · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Obedience without understanding is a blindness too “

“Teaching her is bound to be painful, but she’ll live up to everything you demand of her and no more”
- Annie Sullivan, The Miracle Worker

This play is not about Helen Keller. This play is about Annie Sullivan, the “miracle worker” who brought Helen Keller out of her dark world and taught her everything from table manners to science, math, and reading. The struggle to teach her was real and raw, an impossible task for many. But this woman’s determination gave us this incredible figure of Helen Keller—the first deaf and blind individual to attend college and to write several books about her experience.

As a teacher, Annie Sullivan will forever remain my hero as much as she was Helen’s. Her conviction that every child, no matter how impossible to reach they seem, how handicapped they are, can still reach her high expectations is admirable. Read this short play to meet this incredible woman, this miracle worker, and also watch the black and white film version. An excellent story and drama for the stage and screen.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted something short to nibble on and because I knew a little about Hellen Keller and Annie Sullivan I decided to pick it up. I wasn't prepared for this to be so intense. Even if it's a play it's has such an intense force to it and it's very moving. I would love to see this play someday. Have started picking up plays recently but haven't really watched them in real life

[sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for my Disability Studies & Lit class and really struggled to figure out whether I liked it or not. I think I'd rather be told this story from Helen's own autobiography than from a mediocre play likeeee this just was not a great work of lit! I think the story deserves a better play than this.

[Iman Danial Hakim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves a long and extensive review; and I will do it in the near future.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this for my prac in a grade 10 english class lol. twas alright

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got two copies so the 10yo and 12yo could table-read the play along with me. We were all immediately engaged, and I got really emotional by the end. A great testament to the power of both discipline and language as vital to human connection and knowing. I love how helping Helen healed Annie, too.