Read the excerpt from "the miracle worker" and answer the question: 50 ! 75 if you get !
kate (cuts in). miss annie, before you came we spoke of putting her in an asylum.
[annie turns back to regard her. a pause.]
annie. what kind of asylum?
keller. for mental defectives.
kate. i visited there. i can’t tell you what i saw, people like—animals, with—rats, in the halls, and—(she shakes her head on her vision.) what else are we to do, if you give up?
annie. give up?
kate. you said it was hopeless.
annie. here. give up, why, i only today saw what has to be done, to begin! (she glances from kate to keller, who stare, waiting; and she makes it as plain and simple as her nervousness permits.) i—want complete charge of her.
keller. you already have that. it has resulted in—
annie. no, i mean day and night. she has to be dependent on me.
kate. for what?
annie. everything. the food she eats, the clothes she wears, fresh—(she is amused at herself, though very , yes, the air she breathes, whatever her body needs is a—primer,9 to teach her out of. it’s the only way, the one who lets her have it should be her teacher. (she considers them in turn; they digest it, keller frowning, kate perplexed.) not anyone who loves her, you have so many feelings they fall over each other like feet, you won’t use your chances and you won’t let me.
kate. but if she runs from you—to us—
annie. yes, that’s the point. i’ll have to live with her somewhere else.
keller. what!
annie. till she learns to depend on and listen to me.
kate (not without alarm). for how long?
annie. as long as it takes. (a pause. she takes a breath.) i packed half my things already.
keller. miss—sullivan!
[but when annie attends him he is speechless, and she is merely earnest.]
annie. captain keller, it meets both your conditions. it’s the one way i can get back in touch with helen, and i don’t see how i can be rude to you again if you’re not around to interfere with me.
keller (red-faced). and what is your intention if i say no? pack the other half, for home, and abandon your charge to—to—
annie. the asylum? (she waits, appraises keller’s glare and kate’s uncertainty, and decides to use her weapons.) i grew up in such an asylum. the state almshouse. (kate’s head comes up on this, and keller stares hard; annie’s tone is cheerful enough, albeit level as gunfire.) rats—why, my brother jimmie and i used to play with the rats because we didn’t have toys. maybe you’d like to know what helen will find there, not on visiting days? one ward was full of the—old women, crippled, blind, most of them dying, but even if what they had was catching there was nowhere else to move them, and that’s where they put us. there were younger ones across the hall, prostitutes mostly, with t. b.,10 and epileptic fits, and a couple of the kind who—keep after other girls, especially young ones, and some insane. some just had the d. t.’s.11 the youngest were in another ward to have babies they didn’t want, they started at thirteen, fourteen. they’d leave afterward, but the babies stayed and we played with them, too, though a lot of them had—sores all over from diseases you’re not supposed to talk about, but not many of them lived. the first year we had eighty, seventy died. the room jimmie and i played in was the deadhouse, where they kept the bodies till they could dig—
kate (closes her eyes). oh, my dear—
annie. —the graves. (she is immune to kate’s compassion.) no, it made me strong. but i don’t think you need send helen there. she’s strong enough. (she waits again; but when neither offers her a word, she simply concludes.) no, i have no conditions, captain keller.
how does annie's description of the asylum in "the miracle worker" affect the captain and mrs. keller? if you were helen's parent, how would it affect you?