The Miracle Worker

"The Miracle Worker" by William Gibson is an interesting piece. It is the dramatization of a segment of Helen Keller's life in play form. I suppose this makes it dramatic nonfiction in genre. To me, it read very much like a comedy you'd see on the big screen today. Or that one reality show, Supernanny. I say it reads like a comedy, even though it deals with a fairly dramatic and serious part of a very real person's life, because of just how absurd some situations become. Acts 1 and 2 are full of scenes where Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller wrestle about and fight, and these are exceedingly well written and fun to visualize. I would think these are meant to be very tense and serious, but it simply does not come across like that to me. I'm drawn to vaudeville style black and white stage fights, to that one scene out of Step Brothers where the two titular characters go at it in the most inane way possible.
That said, act 3 does not read like a comedy in the slightest. It feels like the downtime one gets in most movies, after a big event or change. A breather space. But that changes substantially around the last 10 or so pages, with the story going into an upswing and then reaching an end with two plot points settled neatly.

On the whole, I liked "The Miracle Worker", with particular regard for setting. It is not a plot point but dialog between characters like Aunt Ev, James Keller, and Arthur Keller do a nice job of fleshing a post-Civil War South out in a nice way. It uses stereotypes, but not jarringly so, and I thought it was a nice way to immerse a reader, or viewer, of the play.



For reference: this post is number 25 on the Summer Reading Project Directions and Requirements list for Pre-AP English 1. A direct link to this post is:

In regards to the last post: I made a mistake in reading some of the instructions on the packet, and this is the correct part of the project to be viewed. For those directed at my last post, be it from facebook or whatever, please comment on this one, and not Watership Down.