Tarzan and Helen Keller
I’m thinking about Tarzan (Rice Burrows, 1912) how Rice Burrows gives him an introduction to
the written word aged 10 having no context, language, visual language, never
having heard human words or seen them written down, not hearing, speaking or
reading language. Tarzan finds alphabets and primers intended for himself but
lost in a jungle cabin and discovered a decade later by the curious child
Tarzan, who tries to pick the drawings off the page and thinks words are bugs.
P48,
‘of course he had never before seen print, or ever
had spoken with any living thing which had the remotest idea that such a thing
as a written language existed, nor ever had he seen anyone reading’ (Rice
Burrows, 1912, p50)
‘his little face was tense in study, for he had
partially grasped, in a hazy nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was
destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the
strange little bugs (writing)’ p56
It was a picture of a boy and the word BOY under
the picture.
All Tarzan’s learning is inside his head, internal
language, he has never heard speech, like a person with a hearing impediment or
deafness, he sees the pattern of the letters but does not know how they sound,
he has never heard words spoken, letters enunciated in the outside world –
spoken, out of his head ‘in the Market square’ (Geertz , 2000), ha there is no
market square in Tarzan's jungle, there is not any other living person man woman or child that he
has ever seen, his language is entirely interior, and he has no words for his
experience of life. And yet he lives it vigorously and he has ‘Mangalian’ (a
made up language by Rice Burrows) – the ape language, he understands, the lion,
the elephant, the small monkeys, and snakes. Two years later he begins to copy letters,
imitating the words he can see, until eventually aged 17 he can read and he can
write, the books describe his place in the world, what he is - man, and what his adopted family are - apes. ‘Thus we find him at 18 who could
speak no English but could read and write his native language’
(Rickford 1986) says that cognitive abilities such
as problem solving, perception, comprehension and memory may be linked to
vernacular and non-logical modes of language. The linking of intellectual and
cognitive abilities should take into account the ‘repertoire of language
varieties,’ the speaker may be in contact with and the kinds of literary
experiences they may or may not have been exposed to such as socialisation and
schooling.
For dyslexics, this is just as true as speakers of
creole (Carribean), Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea) and pidgin (Haiti), a new
language a mash up of language taken from texting, American shows on TV and
local Northern dialect and area specific language and saying and syntax brews a
heady cocktail of linguistic Wittgenstienian
secret word games and (subject specific) private languages. Many dyslexics including
myself Andromeda, Eos and Lyssa have the experience of being in special needs
educational settings by accident or purpose and this adds to the linguistic mix
including visual sign and symbol languages of Makaton and BSL.
The similarity of Tarzan and Helen Keller’s story
are striking, I wonder if Rice-Burrows had read about or knew of her story of
the birthing of consciousness the emergence of language to describe the
emotions, and world around her that before the teaching of her tutor Anne,
Keller had no language or words to describe. (Christy Brown My left foot,
Stephen Hawking) Helen’s book The Story
of My Life came out in 1903. She embarked on a series of lectures and was
very well known. A 1954 recording of Helen speaking, her voice is translated by
her companion Anne Sullivan who was also sight impaired shows Helen reading room
a braille book, feeling the vibrations of Annie’s footsteps as she approaches,
the palm finger spelling they practice together and Helen’s voice, which she
has rehearsed by putting her hand over the mouth of a speaking person and
imitating the shapes.
‘… as the cool stream gushed over one hand (Annie
Sullivan) spelled into the other water, first slowly then rapidly. I stood
still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly I felt
a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill of returning
thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then
that WATER meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand…I
left the well house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave
birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I
touched seemed to quiver with life. (Lash in Brown 1998)
Ken Brown (1998) says of this story that Helen
Keller’s discovery of word meanings, plausibly
depicts the sudden emergence of human consciousness. Is it too dramatic to say
that Helen’s release from isolation through language and being able to make and
express using language is similar to what I felt breaking through the deadlock
of the printed word, breaking through my own ignorance and blindness. When I
have language I can express myself, when I have language I can communicate.
Isolation is a good word, I played in my own imaginary world. I invested a huge
amount of emotional energy in inanimate objects that I would construct into
narratives of my own making, which precluded the written word, which I felt
barred from.
The privilege in society of the written word is
not to be underestimated. Being excluded from it by sight, by dyslexia or by
ignorance is to live right on the bottom right at the edge of society. To be
excluded from the written word is to be barred from an exclusive club, which
after a while I felt resentful and stubborn towards, giving up but also being
frustrated by books and how they made me feel and the exasperation of the
mystery.
Keller, Tarzan, Christy Brown, come to language in
unique and often isolated ways with much autodidactisism, determination and an
amazement at the birth of language, a word, which meant a feeling, an object, a
person, a place.
Brown, K., (1998) Education Culture and Critical Thinking, Aldershot,
Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Geertz, C. (2000) Available Light, Princeton New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-eBooks-books
(downloaded 11 February 2018)
Keller, H., (1903) The Story of My Life, New York New York,
Bantam Dell and Random House.
Lash, J. P., (1980) Helen and Her Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
Macey, Middlesex, Penguin.
Rice Burrows, E (1912) Tarzan of the Apes, USA, Seven Treasures Publishing
Rickford,
J. R., ‘Me Tarzan you Jan, adequacy, expressiveness and the creole speaker,
Journal of Linguistics Vol 22, number 2 1986, pp281-310
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ch_H8pt9M8 , Helen
Keller Speaks Out, 1954,
accessed 15 February 2018
Comments
Post a Comment