THE STORY OF MY LIFE

                        CHAPTER 15-22

Chapter 15 

Helen spent the next summer and winter with her family in Alabama. Staying at home made her forget about the controversy over ‘The Frost King’. Helen was scared that people would discover that the ideas were not her own. To help her, Helen’s teacher Anne Sullivan encouraged her to write the story of her own life in the form of an assignment. Helen was 12 years old at that time and used to write for a magazine called Youth's Companion. Her visit to President Cleveland’s inauguration, to Niagara Falls, and to the World’s fair were the big events of 1893. Although she couldn’t see the Falls, Helen said that their power had a big impact on her. Helen claimed that beauty and music were like goodness and love to her.

Chapter 16 

By the time Helen was 13, she could fingerspell and read in raised print and Braille. He could not only speak in English, but also a little bit of French. Helen began her formal schooling and preparation for college in for college by taking Latin and Math lessons.  She initially liked Math more, but later grew to love Latin too.

Anne Sullivan taught Helen based on her interests until now. She used to teach her what she wanted to know and provided her with experiences. However, when preparing for college, Helen worked systematically and things that did not gratify her immediately. She had to achieve her goal of receiving formal education.  

Chapter 17 

In October 1894, Helen went to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City for two years. Miss Sullivan accompanied her and attended the school as her interpreter. Helen studied arithmetic, physical geography, French and German at the school. The school was chosen because it was the best for continuing the development of Helen’s speech and lip reading skills. Helen and her teachers were disappointed as her lip-reading and speech skills were not what they had hoped and expected to be despite the practice. Helen did not like Math. In spite of the setbacks, her admiration for geography and languages helped her form fond memories of her stay in New York.  The only thing she liked about New York was Central Park. The daily walks in Central park and closeness to nature were the two things that helped her get closer to her former life in her country.

Chapter 18 

In 1896, Helen went to Cambridge school for Young Ladies to be prepared to get into Radcliffe. It was her first experience of attending classes with girls who could hear and see. At the Cambridge School too, Miss Sullivan was to attend the classes with Helen as her interpreter. The teachers had never taught someone like Helen. The subjects that Helen learnt in the first year were English history, English literature, German, Latin, arithmetic, Latin composition and occasional themes. Miss Sullivan tried her best to spell into Helen’s hands everything that was in the books. Although Helen’s sponsors in London and Philadelphia worked to have the textbooks embossed in raised print for Helen to read, the books were not ready in time to suit Helen’s purpose. The Principal and the German teacher learnt to fingerspell so that Miss Sullivan could take a break. Although they were not as fluent as Miss Sullivan, Principal Gilman took over teaching Helen English Literature for the remaining part of the year.  

Chapter 19

Helen looked forward to her second year at Gilman’s school. However, she was confronted with unexpected difficulties that year which caused her a great deal of frustration.  She had to study mathematics without the needed tools. The classes were larger and it was not possible for the Cambridge teachers to give her special instructions. Anne Sullivan had to read all the books to her. Helen had to wait in order to buy a Braille writer so that she could do her algebra, geometry and physics.

When the embossed books and the other apparatus arrived, Helen’s difficulties began to disappear and she began to study with confidence. However, Mr. Gilman thought that Helen was overworked and was breaking down. He insisted that I was overworked, and that I should remain at his school three years longer. He made changes in her studies. A difference of opinion between Mr. Gilman and Miss Sullivan resulted in Helen’s mother withdrawing Helen and Mildred from the Cambridge school. Helen went on to continue her studies under a tutor. Helen found it easier to study with a tutor than receive instructions in class.

When Helen took her exam in June 1899, she faced many difficulties, as the administrative board of Radcliffe did not realize how difficult they were making her examinations. They did not understand the peculiar difficulties Helen had to go through. However, Helen, with her grit and determination, overcame them all.                  

Chapter 20 

Helen Keller took the entrance exams for Radcliffe College in 1899 just after her 19th birthday. She became the first blind-deaf college student in the fall of 1900.  She had thought of college romantically, that it would be a time to reflect and think about her subjects. However, her college life was different from her fellow students. She had to use her hands to listen rather than take down notes. The speed at which the lectures took place made it difficult for Keller to understand and remember everything that was taught.

Ms. Keller and Ms. Sullivan worked hard at Radcliffe College. Ms. Sullivan attended all of Ms. Keller's classes and helped with reading. Radcliffe was not prepared for deaf or blind students at that time. Many of the other students had never met a deaf and blind person. Although she enjoyed college, Ms. Keller thought that schedules of the students were too hectic and gave no time to sit and think. She also wrote, "we should take our education as we would take a walk in the country, leisurely, our minds hospitably open to impressions of every sort."

Chapter 21 

In this chapter, Helen Keller goes back to tell readers about her initial experiences with reading. Helen first read when I was seven years old. That was her first connected story in May 1887. There were only a few books in raised print, which Helen read repeatedly until a time when the words were so worn and pressed that she could scarcely make them out.

During her visit to Boston, she was allowed to spend a part of each day at the Institution library, and here she used to wander from bookcase to bookcase and take down whatever her “fingers lighted upon”. When she discovered the book ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ Miss Sullivan read it to her and the book became Helen’s “sweet and gentle companion” throughout her childhood.

From there she read many books and she loved "Little Women" because it gave her a sense of kinship with girls and boys who could see and hear. She also loved ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘Wild ‘Animals I Have Known’ as she felt a genuine interest in the animals themselves, they being “real animals and not caricatures of men”.  She was fascinated by Greek literature and it was Iliad that made Greece her “paradise”. According to her, great poetry did not need an interpreter but a responsive heart. Macbeth and King Lear impressed her most among Shakespeare’s works. She read the Bible for years “with an ever-broadening sense of joy and inspiration”. She said she loved it as she loved no other book.

Helen also expresses her love for history apart from her love for literature. The first book that gave her a real sense of the value of history was Swinton's "World's History," which she received on her thirteenth birthday. Among the French writers, she liked Molière and Racine best. Literature was Helen’s Utopia, where she faced no barrier of the senses. The things that she had learned and the things that were taught to her seemed of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities."

Chapter 22 

Books and reading were not the only things that Helen enjoyed. When Helen was not reading, she enjoyed outdoor activities. She liked swimming, canoeing, and sailing. She also loved trees and used to feel close to them so much so that she believed she could hear their sap flow and see the sun shining on the leaves. Helen felt that each one of us had the ability to understand the impressions and the emotions experienced by mankind from the beginning. Blindness or deafness could not rob us of our memory in the subconscious about the green earth. This, she termed as the sixth sense which can see, feel and hear.   

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) Summary and Analysis

Summary

Chapter 15

George, Harris, and J. argue about who will tow the boat, the most physically demanding job by far. They eventually decide to row to Reading, at which point J. will tow for a while. We learn that J. learned to row by joining a club, but that George had some trouble learning. The first time he went out, with a group of friends on a trip to Kew, the coxswain did not know how to call out directions and they had great trouble navigating.

J. lists the different types of rowing, as well as the pitfalls that novices face when they attempt to row for the first time. He discusses punting, a type of rowing where the passenger stands up in the boat and propels it along using a long pole that is pushed against the riverbed. Punting is hazardous for beginners; J. describes a friend who was not paying attention and stepped off the boat, leaving himself clinging to the pole in the middle of the river as the boat drifted away.

On another occasion, J. and his friends noticed an amateur punter who could not keep control of his boat. Thinking it was someone they knew, they mercilessly mocked him until realizing that the man was actually a stranger. Harris once had a similar experience, when a stranger thought he was a friend and began roughhousing with him, holding his head under water.

J. concludes the chapter with a final anecdote about sailing on the river with his friend Hector. The men had trouble raising the sail, which was very tangled. They eventually ran the boat aground and decided to row back. However, they broke the oars in the process, and had to be towed.

Chapter 16

As the men approach Reading, J. describes several important historical events that happened there. Starting in the 17th century, it became a popular destination for Londoners fleeing the plague. However, it is now crowded and polluted, so the men pass through it quickly.As they leave Reading, J. spots an acquaintance who owns a steam-launch; the steamboat tows them for several miles, giving the men a much-needed break from rowing.As they approach Goring, they spot a dead woman floating in the water.Some other travelers take her to the coroner, but J. later learns that she killed herself after having a child out of wedlock and being abandoned by her family.

Analysis

Chapter 15 features another ‘callback’ to earlier in the text. The men’s argument about who will tow the boat is similar to earlier arguments they have about who will perform the most difficult jobs. (For example, consider the way Harris and J. force George to tow the boat out of Shepperton.) Both moments also reflect a similar sense of irony, since J. speaks proudly about his work ethic in both places while being clearly unwilling to work. These moments also conform to the novel's recurring theme of the illusions people have about themselves.

Most of Three Men in a Boat is written to be accessible to readers who are unfamiliar with boating. Although rowing and sailing were popular past-times in England at this time, they were not universal among the book’s intended audience. Three Men in a Boat was written as a comic travel novel rather than as a technical description of rowing. Chapter 15 is unusual, then, in that it features a number of anecdotes about punting and sailing that can only be fully appreciated by readers familiar with the activity. Despite these occasional technical interludes, Three Men was popular with boating and non-boating audiences alike, and is credited with popularizing the sport among travelers.

Readers familiar with English geography will note that Jerome uses a very antiquated location name: Wessex. Between 519 and 927 AD, Wessex was a kingdom in England. However, Victorian readers would have recognized the term from the work of Thomas Hardy. Thomas Hardy’s novels are set in Wessex, a fictional region in southern England where pastoral beauty and human drama collide. Jerome refers to Hardy’s works elsewhere in the novel, too. For instance, in Chapter 1, he uses the phrase “far from the madding crowd,” which was also the title of a Hardy novel (12). These literary allusions are just one more approach Jerome uses in this multi-faceted novel.

The dead woman in Chapter 16 heralds a marked departure from Jerome's usually comedic tone. Although it only unfolds over a few pages, the woman’s story provides an example of the gritty, earnest social realism that was popular during the Victorian period. In the nineteenth century, many English writers felt an obligation to portray society's injustices. Jerome’s short vignette about the unfortunate young mother is inspired by these ‘social realist’ stories, which often portrayed the difficult situations faced by members of the lower classes.

However, the short scene can also be connected to the novel's larger themes. His ire in the anecdote is directed particularly towards the family, which abandons the woman because of her trouble. Considering how often Jerome finds humor in the way humans lie to themselves, this scene provides an interesting counterpoint. The woman's family, clearly believing themselves above such behavior, made themselves implicitly responsible for her death. It is arguable that Jerome wishes us to realize how certain pretensions can be inexorably harmful, even if others are merely sources of simple irony.

Chapter 17

The men try to wash their clothes in the Thames, but only succeed in making them dirtier than before. They pay a washerwoman in Streatley to do their laundry, and she charges them three times the normal rate because the clothes are so dirty. They do not complain.

After describing Streatley as a fishing town, J. advises readers not to fish in the Thames because there is nothing to be caught there but minnows and dead cats. J. explains that being a good angler has nothing to do with fishing, and everything to do with one’s ability to tell believable lies about the number of fish one has caught. He provides several examples of men he has met who have lied convincingly about their catch.

George and J. go to a pub in Wallingford. There is a large trout hanging on the wall there, and three different patrons (plus the bartender) each claim they were the one to catch it, each with a different story and description of its weight. At the end of the night, George trips and grabs the trout to steady himself. The trout falls to the ground and shatters, and the men realize that it is made of plaster of Paris.

Chapter 18

J. discusses how “the Thames would not be the fairyland it is without its flower-decked locks” (170).

He recalls another rowing trip he took with George to Hampton Court. A photographer was taking pictures of a steam-launch, and called out to George and J. to try to stay out of his photograph. In attempting to keep their boat out of the frame, George and J. fell over and were photographed lying in the boat with their feet in the air. Their feet took up nine-tenths of the image, and the owner of the steam-launch – who had commissioned the photos – refused to pay for them.

J. describes the sights and attractions of Dorchester, Clifton, and Abingdon. These include Roman ruins, a pleasant park, and the grave of a man who is said to have fathered 197 children. J. warns readers about a challenging stretch of river near Oxford.

 Chapter 19

The friends spend two days in Oxford. Montmorency has a wonderful time fighting with the many stray dogs there. J. explains that many who vacation on the Thames start in Oxford and row downriver to London, so that they travel with the current the whole time. He recommends bringing one’s own boat rather than renting one in Oxford, however, because the boats there are of low quality. He remembers once hiring a boat in Oxford and mistaking it for an archeological artifact.

On the journey back from Oxford, it rains incessantly. The men, miserable, pass the time by playing penny nap, a card game, and listening to George play the banjo. Although J. describes him as an unskilled player elsewhere in the book, George here plays a mournful rendition of “Two Lovely Black Eyes” that plunges the men further into depression.

Though they swore to complete the trip, the men decide to abandon the boat and spend the rest of the trip in an inn in Pangbourne. They enjoy a delicious supper there, and tell the other guests about their travels. As the novel ends, they toast their decision to end the trip when they did, and Montmorency barks in agreement.

Analysis

The nineteenth century was a time of elevated awareness about public health concerns. England was becoming an increasingly urban society, and the growing cities had to deal with both internal population growth and an influx of rural migrants seeking work in the factories. Between 1800 and 1900, the population of London grew from one million to six million (Isola et al.). Sewage overflowed and leaked into both the streets and the Thames, and smoke from coal-powered appliances and factories polluted the air. The public health crisis was well-documented at the time, and many Victorian writers – including Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell - discussed it in their fiction. White-collar workers like George, J., andHarris would have been able to live in relatively tolerable conditions. However, Jerome’s vivid depiction of the polluted Thames shows that the sanitation crisis affected even London’s wealthier residents.

The incident with the plaster fish is another example of Jerome’s liberal attitude toward social class. In the bar, several patrons from different social backgrounds all claim to have caught the fish. In spite of their differences in background, they behave similarly. Through this incident, Jerome seems to suggest that pretension cuts across social classes. In other words, all people lie to themselves, regardless of their levels of comfort.

The humor of Three Men in a Boat is generally lighthearted, but does occasionally veer into very dark territory. One example of this comes in Chapter 18, when J. notes that “the pool under Sanford lasher . . . is a very good place to drown yourself in” (174). The comment is especially abrupt because it comes after a relatively prosaic description of Nuneham Park, and because it appears only pages after the episode where the men find the body of a woman who did drown herself. Jerome’s wild vacillations in tone are one reason why contemporary critics were not sure what to make of Three Men in a Boat, and it is a quality of the text that some readers continue to find challenging today.

All in all, these final chapters (and sections) continue to suggest the idea that Jerome was constructing the novel as he went along. Not only does the tone veer wildly, but the book also becomes significantly more focused on travel descriptions in its final chapters, and the plot becomes rather rushed. The sudden ending has a certain comic quality in its suddenness, but also provides the sense that Jerome has run out of steam much as J. and his friends did.

However, the ending does provide some resolution to its recurring question about what it means to be happy. Jerome suggests throughout the novel that people always want precisely what they cannot have, and see themselves as different from they actually are. The basic set-up reflects these ideas; the men believe they are unhappy in their urban lives and are actually outdoorsmen. Of course, through the journey, they finally accept that spending time off of the boat is more desirable than spending time in it. Ironically, they end up happy in the same urban environment that they found tiresome at the beginning of the novel. According to Jerome, this perennial dissatisfaction with one’s lot is part of human nature, and is what motivates people to keep trying new things. However, we always find our greatest happiness when we explore the new things and then accept who we actually are.

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

                                                      CHAPTER 11 -19

Chapter 11 begins with George telling J. a story about how he forgot to wind his watch before bed and ended up waking up at 3 in the morning. This aroused the suspicion of the police constables who found him walking around London in the wee hours of the morning. J., George and Harris went for a morning swim and later Harris, who had no idea how to make srambled eggs, tried his hand at it and failed miserably. They later arrive at Magna Carta island and J. mused about being a peasant at the time when King John signed the Magna Carta.

In Chapter 12, the men passed through Picnic Point where King Henry was known to have courted Anne Boleyn. J. spoke about the predicament of the locals who must have had a hard time giving privacy to the couple. He later added that it is indeed awkward walking in on couples who were “spooning”. They passed through the place where Earl Godwin was known to have choked after being accused of Edward the confessor’s brother’s murder. They finally came across a boy who offered them a place to stay in and they were grateful for it. After having forgotten the mustard at home, the trio settled for a can for pineapple to eat with lunch. They soon gave up after unsuccessfully trying to open the can. They passed by three old men fishing who cursed them because Harris’ poor steering disturbs the water. The friends decided to stay at an inn in Marlow that night.

In Chapter 13, the trio passed through Marlow, Bisham Alley and Medemenham where they came across an abbey where an order of prodigious monks once lived. During lunch, Montmorency got intimidated by a cat and its menacing stare. They stocked up on food in Marlow but they found it difficult to leave due to the large number of steam-launches in the water. Faced with a water shortage, the trio pondered about drinking the river water. They eventually ended up drinking some water from a nearby cottage which they thought was from the river as well. The day ended comically with Harris falling off the edge of a gulch and J and George thinking he was dead.

In Chapter 14, the men make Irish strew but they ended up over-peeling the potatoes. Montmorency caught a water rat which he thought could be added to the stew but the men declined. The stew turned out to be delicious. Startled by the tea-kettle, Montmorency attacked it. George’s dismal banjo playing was accompanied by Montmorency’s howling. This prompted the others to request him to never play again. It was mentioned that George was forced to have sold his banjo due to complaints from his landlady and the passersby. After a night out, George and J. forgot where the boat was docked. Eventually they followed Montmorency’s barks and found the boat. Harris narrated an incident where he single-handedly fought of a swarm of aggressive swans whose nest they disturbed.

In Chapter 15, the friends discussed who will tow the boat since it is the most strenuous job. They rowed the boat to Reading where J. would tow it for a while. Since J. had had some experience in rowing, he named the different types of rowing a boat as well as the common mistakes people make when they try rowing for the first time. He described punting as a type of rowing where the passenger propels the boat in the right direction pushing a long pole into the riverbed. He then warned them about the hazards of punting by recounting a story of a friend who was left clinging to the pole as the boat drifted away. He also mentioned another occasion when he and his friends heckled an amateur punter mistaking him for someone they knew. Harris added by narrating an incident where he held a person’s head under water thinking he was a friend. The chapter ends with J sharing another anecdote involving his friend Hector.

The men approach Reading in Chapter 16. J. mentioned that the now polluted and crowded Reading was once a popular destination for Londoners to escape the plague. They got a respite from rowing when an acquaintance with a steam-launcher helped them by towing their boat for miles. They saw the corpse of a woman floating in the water as they reached Goring. They took her to the coroner and found out that she had killed herself because she begot a child out of wedlock and her family abandoned her.

In Chapter 17, the men tried doing their laundry by washing their clothes in the river but they ended up making them even dirtier than before. They readily pay a washerwoman who charged three times the normal rate to wash their clothes since they were so dirty. Later, J. emphasized on the importance of lying about one’s fishing prowess. George and J. go to a pub in Wallingford. Three patrons tried to take credit for a large trout hanging on the wall. Each had his own story and an estimation of its weight. Their lie was exposed when George grabbed on to the trout to stop himself from tripping and ended up displacing it. It fell on the ground and shattered into pieces. It is then revealed that the fish was made of plaster of Paris.

Chapter 18, starts with J.’s discussion of the Thames without “its flower-decked locks”. He narrated another anecdote involving him and George in Hampton Court where a photographer took pictures of a steam-launch. He called out to the duo to stay away from the frame. In an attempt to keep their boat out of the frame, both fell with their feet up in the air. Their feet took up nine-tenths of the image and the annoyed owner of the steam-launcher refused to foot the bill.

In the 19^th Chapter, the trio went to Oxford. Montmorency also regaled himself by fighting with the other stray dogs. J. explained the logic behind why some people who vacation on the Thames start from Oxford and move down to London. It helped their boats to move along with the current. He said that the boats in Oxford are too bad to be rented hence it is important to bring one’s own boat. He recounted when he had once mistaken an Oxford boat for an ancient artifact. The incessant rains ruined their journey back from Oxford. They pass their time by playing penny nap and listening to George playing the banjo. Though he was ridiculed for his banjo-playing skills in a previous chapter, George rendered a mournful tune of “Two lovely black eyes”. This caused the other two to be more depressed. They aborted their trip and retired into an inn in Pangbourne where they regaled the guests with their adventures and misadventures from the trip. In the end, they raised a toast their decision to abandon the trip. Montmorency barked in order to concede with the three.