The Influence Of Adversity: The Roman Poet Helen Keller

Adversity is something we will all face. It’ll affect everyone ranging, from myself to characters in a book. Even though going through something so challenging, so painful, and so life changing can be hard, how you chose to handle it affects whether or not you overcome it. Adversity can either break a person or make them stronger; it’s up to their will to fight.

Napoleon Hill once stated, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” From George Washington to Nelson Mandela, greatness is cultivated from adversity during turbulent times. Horace’s assertion is correct in view of the fact that adversity causes people to act, reveals vulnerabilities, and forces people to adapt.

Helen Keller was a social activist throughout the late 1800s and much of the 1900s for the deaf and blind. She went blind and deaf at a young age from a disease but learned how to communicate with the world. She went to Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, and Cambridge School for Young Ladies for college. On June 23, 1953, Keller gave a speech at the National University of Mexico to promote rights for the blind specifically. Helen Keller effectively convinces her audience blind people need equal rights through the use of repetition and emotional appeals.

Hardships have the power to make a break a person, as Roman poet, Horace, once said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. Everyone has or will have to face adversity at some point in their lives, it is a universal truth. Although misfortunes usually have a negative connotation, depending on the struggle and how one deals with it, it is likely the person will come out of misfortune better prepared for the world. Contrastly, if a person never experienced any hardships, they would lack a sophisticated understanding of the world and lack the ability to handle difficult situations. Adversity gives people strength they can not obtain with success.

Adversity can be seen in many different ways. Some people look at adversity as a learning experience, while others view adversity as a situation marked with misfortune. When a person is faced with adversity, rather than viewing it as something to hate, they should see it as a opportunity to grow. In the stories by Doris Lessing, W.D Wetherell and Alice Walker, they all show different types of challenges each character had to over come and their journey to do so. These stories all shared similar outcomes, they demonstrate how each character used an obstacle they were faced with, and turned it into a beneficial experience and how it shaped them into the person they are today.

The positive impact words had on the three people's lives is mind blowing; and these three short essays can prove it. Helen Keller was born in 1880 she was blind and deaf. She couldn't communicate any issue's she had with people because she didn't know how to. When she was seven her parents got a special teacher for her condition.

Helen Keller was a deaf and blind author, lecturer, and political activist from the United States. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught her how to communicate and eventually Keller became the first deaf and blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts. She wrote many books and advocated for labor rights, socialism, woman’s suffrage, antimilitarism, and many other controversial topics.

Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months she had an illness that the doctors thought was Scarlet Fever, this resulted in Helen becoming deaf and blind. Five years later, her parents had hired a teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Keller learned to understand and communicate to the world around her. Helen Keller stood up against

Adversity is inevitable, but it is because of challenges and hardship that progress our society. The Roman Poet Horace once believed, that when faced with adversity, our true talents and capabilities are revealed. Throughout history and even in today’s world, there are numerous circumstances in which people have overcome and even began to thrive after enduring their hardships; sparking and unveiling talents in which may have never been revealed if such hardship had ever occurred. Horace’s statement that adversity manifests talent accurately justifies that in order to progress and reveal one’s true capacities, one should face adversity head on. Some may argue that in face of hardship, some situations are too adverse and difficult to overcome.

Adversity puts people in difficult or unpleasant situations which can create very strong emotions that can help or harm. When people face adversity, it is seen as a challenge and whether or not they overcome the challenge is personal. However regardless of whether adversity helps or harms, it is advantageous because it offers a challenge to overcome which builds character.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Georgia in 1980. Following a dreadful illness, Keller became blind and deaf. Helen learned to communicate using her fingers. She and Martha Washington, the daughter of the family gardener, invented signs to communicate. When Helen became difficult to deal with because of her bad behavior, her family contacted Alexander Graham Bell. He had been working with children who were deaf. He encouraged them to take Helen to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. There they met Kate Sullivan who became Helen’s teacher and friend. Helen’s ability to communicate allowed her to graduate college and become very

Adversity is defined as an unfortunate event or circumstance. Men and women alike all deal with it, from birth to death. Stephen Curry, Ben Carson, and Robert Downey Jr. all faced adversity in different measures and in different parts of life, but it affected their lives in good ways and bad. Adversity pushed them to become successful in each of their fields of expertise, whether medical, athletics, or acting. Adversity doesn’t look at your bank account or how much talent you might have or your home life, it’s something everyone deals with. Choosing to overcome these unfortunate events is what leads to success.

Everyone has faced adversity at some point in their lives, yet we survive and emerge from our obstacles more resilient than before. As the proverb states, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Whether it is a hidden gift that may lead to future success, or simply determination that helped you power through the obstacle, people always end up discovering talents that they didn’t have before. Like Roman poet Horace claims, adversity induces hidden talents that would not have been unmasked under prosperous conditions.

Helen Keller had come across tremendous difficulties, but the aspect that made her stand out was that she was blind and deaf. Keller developed the disabilities due to an unknown illness, either rubella or scarlet fever, at a very young age. Her behavior was often challenging because she had no way of

Helen actually wasn't deaf and blind; she was born perfectly normal in a small town in Alabama called Tuscumbia on June 27, 1880. Due to a sickness believed to be Scarlet Fever; Keller lost her ability to see and hear at the age about nineteen months. In the progressing years of her life Helen became crazy and somewhat bad. In the beginning period of Helen's talking it had been difficult because she had gotten confused; soon enough her teacher Anne had taken her to a water pump,put her hand under it, and showed Keller the association between the running water and the spelling of the word. Helen had went to a blind school and that is where she met her long-time teacher Anne Sullivan. In the year of 1898 Cambridge School for Young Ladies gained Helen as a student when she was preparing to go to Radcliffe for college. Keller certainly has seemed to have a tough background, but she ends up pushing through it and has a great future.