Helen Keller's Three Imaginary Seeing Days example essay topic

Of all the articles I have read in my extensive class, Three Days to see, written by Helen Keller, is the most impressive one. Helen Keller is a famous American blind & deaf author. She walked past 88 springs and autumns, but she suffered 87 years of lonely life without light, sound and words. Such a poor woman made a miracle with her brave and active life style. She graduated from Harvard University and set up numbers of philanthropic institutions for the disabled. She lived in a dark world but brought us brightness.

In An Intimate History of Humanity, Theodore Iel din wrote that" no history of the world can be complete which does not mention Helen Keller, whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person". I first heard this essay when I was in middle school. That was a quiet night; I heard the DJ reading this long essay (Chinese edition) and moved to tears. From then on, I bear in mind the title of that essay, Three Days to See, and the name of the author, Helen Keller. I first read the original English edition in my extensive class and this time I was stricken by the beautiful words. I read it as if I was talking with an old friend and also had a better understanding of it as time went by.

I can't forget Helen Keller's three imaginary seeing days. I can't forget Helen's first seeing day. She should like to call to her all her dear friends and look long into their faces, imprinting upon her mind the outward evidences of the beauty that is within them. She should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate her eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature, trying desperately to absorb in a few hours the vast splendor which is constantly unfolding itself to those who can see.

Helen's first seeing day, to us, is extremely common, but that is just what Helen wants to pursue, since she has only three days. I can't forget the second day that Helen has power of sight. This day she should devote to a hasty glimpse of the world, past and present. She should want to see the pageant of man's progress. So she would visited the New York Museum of Natural History; she should try to probe into the soul of man through art, so she would go to the temple of art; she should like to spend the night at a theatre or at the movies, since she wants to enjoy the movie's beautiful colors, grace and movement. For us who are able to see, we can spend many fruitful days there, but Helen with her three imaginary days of sight, could only take a glimpse, and pass on.

I can't forget Helen's third imaginary day of sight. She shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings; there is too much to see. The first day she devoted to her friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to her the history of man and Nature. Today she shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life. A good essay must be the expression of the author's true feeling at the bottom of heart.

Three days to see leads me to an attractive spiritual world for its colorful imagination and flowing words. It impresses and affects me deeply in that the feeling revealed in this essay is so real and strong and full of passion. Reading this essay is a course of talking soul-to-soul with the great author. She tells us that her heart cries out with longing to see all the things, but we people who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Our eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation.

It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill. It is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as mere conveniences rather than as a means of adding fullness to life. The author uses comparison throughout the essay between she, who is deaf and blind, and we, who were born healthy. She shows us an excellent rule to live by this comparison, that is, to live each day as if we should die tomorrow.

Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor, and a keenness of appreciation. Lack of this attitude we will see and hear little though we are blessed health, while if equipped with this attitude, a new world of beauty will open itself before us. "Cherish what we have", we might hear these words not once, but such words said by a deaf and blind woman who can only see the world through fingers, are more convincing and striking. I like these words said by Helen Keller very much. "Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind.

And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again.

Make the most of every sense: glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides". I think this is the correct way in which we should live. We are too lucky to be satisfied about what we have, we hear more, see more than Helen, but our love and understanding of life is far less than Helen. We all should rediscover life. For me, I learned to savor life in much the same way a wine connoisseur might do. My wine glass was filled with the fragrant reality of life.

Life itself is a glass of wine. It is in this essay that I learn to take the first sip of wine and slowly swirl it around as to savor it. It is in this essay I learn how to cherish life in all its diversity of hue and flavor. That's why Three days to see is the most impressive essay I have read.