Keller writes that Light! Give me light was the wordless cry of [her] soul. What was the light Keller longed for, and how did receiving...

From the
beginning of Keller's education, Anne "Annie" Sullivan was convinced that there was a
great torment in Keller's soul and that the torment came from being fundamentally unable to
communicate with the world around her. Worse yet, Annie observed that Keller's parents seemed
far less concerned with actually helping her find her way out of this darkness and more with
simply having her trained enough to not be a menace in day-to-day home living.


This turned out to indeed be true, and the "light" that Keller was
referring to was language. Language allowed Keller to communicate with the world around her and
to understand and contextualize its meaning as it related to her. After that fateful afternoon
by the water-pump, where Keller learned her first word, she was able to feel less like a lost
child alone in a dark, silent world. She understood the people around her cared for her and that
she was a part of the world of the living.