Madison Contreras

Writer

With students all over the Marlow High School campus buzzing over rumors that Helen Keller may have falsely represented herself, many have taken it upon themselves to reevaluate her life. 

Becoming both deaf and blind nineteen months after her birth, Keller became a world image of peace, equality and a symbol of hope.

Having written multiple books, been an outspoken activist in numerous movements, won prestigious awards and co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union, Keller has been studied in history classes dating decades back.

Despite the challenges of her disabilities, Keller was able to communicate through finger-spelling, writing, Braille, touch-lip reading, speech and typing, along with knowing five languages, in result causing conspiracies surrounding the authenticity of Keller’s story.

With multiple variations questioning the truth, the conspiracy is based on the idea that Keller could not have accomplished her many feats while being both deaf and blind.

While up to two percent of the world’s population is represented by deaf-blind people, according to the International Disability Association, many are unrecognized for their achievements, leaving an open interpretation of how accomplishments are achieved.

Just amidst Marlow High School, roughly 44% of the student body questions whether or not Keller’s story is completely factual.

Strongly believing there are faults throughout history, senior Harper Pitts discussed her opinion on the conspiracies.

“We’re questioning a lot of things in today’s society just because we’ve noticed a lot of things throughout our time that we’ve been lied about, so it’s like why wouldn’t she be lied about,” explained Pitts. “I’m not doubting that she existed, she was a real person. I just think it is improbable that she was deaf and blind and still wrote a book.”

A theory that has been circulating the globe for over a century, there is belief that Keller did not write her first book, The Frost King, thus supporting Pitt’s beliefs.

Keller was accused of plagiarism at age eleven when suspicions arose that she copied the writing of The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby.

With knowledge that Keller likes to assimilate her experiences into her stories, majorities believe that she had heard The Frost Fairies from a summer abroad, but others have concluded that Anne Sullivan, Keller’s teacher, had spear-headed Keller’s writing from the start.

Following Keller’s first publication, her writings developed into Progressive works that spoke on workers’ rights, suffrage and racial equality, all ideals of her Progressive teacher.

Sullivan, being from a Yankee state, had developed a Northern style of thinking – or Progressive ideals of equality among all people- whereas Keller had grown up around Southern ways of living where equality is attained for only white home-owning men.

A common rebuttal to the accusation that Sullivan wrote all of or most of Keller’s literary works is that Keller had published two major books after her teacher’s death in 1936, discrediting the idea that Sullivan is the voice behind Helen Keller.

Whether Keller was an unrecognized genius of her age or there are faults to uncover in her timeline, MHS students will continue to question everyday life and look at it from new perspectives.