Anne is forced to give in and ask for help, and climbs out the window by ladder. But Helen outsmarts her, hitting Anne in the face with the doll and locks her in the room. She tries to quell the child’s tantrums by spelling into Helen’s hands whenever she wants something, namely ‘cake’ and ‘doll’. When she meets Helen, she immediately drags her upstairs, eager to get to work.
When she gets to Alabama, the family is a little apprehensive about her, mainly because of her age and her stubborn attitude. He died as they were separated from each other at an orphanage, and the memory of that constantly visits her. She is young at 20, and haunted by visions of her younger brother Jimmie.
In the next scene we see Anne packing and preparing to leave the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where she was not only a patient, but seemingly a teacher as well. He finally relents, and they decide on Anne Sullivan, a governess from Massachusetts. Kate, however, is steadfast, and won’t give up on her daughter. The Captain believes that hiring more would simply be a waste of time and money, and would rather accept her tedious nature. We discover that they have hired many doctors to attempt to help her, but to no avail. The Captain and Kate are arguing, mainly about what to do with Helen. Further inspection shows that they would rather spoil her with treats, in a similar manner to the way one would train a dog.
She terrorizes everyone in the house, and she gets away with it all because no one knows how to discipline her. She is around six years old, and is now the king of the house. In the next scene, we see that Helen has grown up a little. She assumes that because of the illness, Helen is now unable to see or hear. As the Captain escorts out the doctor, Kate notices that something is awry with the baby. The sickness that she had nearly killed her. Kate and Captain Keller, along with a doctor, are standing next to a crib, discussing how the Keller’s daughter, Helen, survived a difficult ailment. The plot begins at night on a plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama. It follows the Keller family and their struggles with their daughter Helen, who is deaf, mute and dumb and Anne Sullivan, a young teacher. In doing so, it’s implied, Annie not only triumphs where many other doctors have failed-she also comes to terms with her own traumatic past.This play, The Miracle Worker, is set in the 1880’s. In the end, Annie succeeds in teaching Helen the concept of meaning-that is, the relationship between words in sign language and the things they represent. Annie is shown to be a highly capable teacher-not so much because she’s a genius, but because she’s persistent and has a personal stake in helping her pupils succeed. Annie tries to teach Helen Keller how to communicate by introducing her to sign language. In a way, taking care of children is her way of atoning for having “abandoned” James as a child.
She seems to be attracted to teaching, not just because she’s benefitted from education personally but because she continues to feel guilty for James’s death. Later, Annie attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where she learned how to read and write, and eventually received surgery to help her regain her sight. James (or “Jimmie”) died at the almshouse, and Annie appears to feel personally responsible for the death of her beloved brother. A Massachusetts “Yankee,” as several of the Kellers like to call her, Annie grew up blind in a squalid almshouse with her younger brother, James Sullivan. Annie Sullivan is the “miracle worker” of the play’s title, and the play’s protagonist.