The Miracle Worker

by

William Gibson

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Kate Keller is the mother of Helen Keller and the second, considerably younger wife of Captain Arthur Keller. A kind and loving woman, Kate is a loyal mother to Helen, trying again and again to teach her to talk and communicate. She convinces her husband to hire some of the finest doctors in the country and she’s instrumental in reaching out to Annie Sullivan, the teacher who ultimately teaches Helen to use sign language. And yet there is something constraining and stifling about Kate’s relationship with her daughter. She loves Helen, but she also babies Helen excessively, to the point where Helen has no incentive to learn to communicate: Kate gives Helen candy and attention no matter what she does. At the end of the play, it is Annie, not Kate, who embraces Helen, perhaps signaling that while Kate is Helen’s loving mother, it is Annie who has become the true maternal presence in Helen’s life.

Kate Keller Quotes in The Miracle Worker

The The Miracle Worker quotes below are all either spoken by Kate Keller or refer to Kate Keller. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Communication Theme Icon
).
Act 1 Quotes

KELLER: Katie. How many times can you let them break your heart?
KATE: Any number of times.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

ANNIE: Any baby. Gibberish, grown-up gibberish, baby-talk gibberish, do they understand one word of it to start? Somehow they begin to. If they hear it, I'm letting Helen hear it.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:

KATE: Miss Annie. You see, she's accustomed to helping herself from our plates to anything she—
ANNIE [Evenly]: Yes, but, I'm not accustomed to it.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 47-48
Explanation and Analysis:

KATE: My Helen—folded her napkin—
(And still erect, with only her head in surrender, KATE for the first time that we see loses her protracted war with grief; but she will not let a sound escape her, only the grimace of tears comes, and sobs that shake her in a grip of silence.)

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: Mrs. Keller, I don't think Helen's worst handicap is deafness or blindness. I think it's your love. And pity.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: 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.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Kate Keller (speaker), James Sullivan / “Jimmie” (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

JAMES [in pain] Don't—
KATE: Captain.
KELLER: He's afraid.
(He throws JAMES away from him, with contempt.)
What does he want out of me?
JAMES [AN OUTCRY]: My God, don't you know?
(He gazes from KELLER to KATE.)
Everything you forgot, when you forgot my mother.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller (speaker), James Keller (speaker)
Page Number: 75-76
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

JAMES: What does he want from me?
KATE: That's not the question. Stand up to the world, Jimmie, that comes first.
JAMES [A PAUSE, WRYLY]: But the world is him.
KATE: Yes. And no one can do it for you.
JAMES: Kate.
(His voice is humble.)
At least we—Could you—be my friend?
KATE: I am.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), James Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: Yes, what's it to me? They're satisfied. Give them back their child and dog, both housebroken, everyone's satisfied. But me, and you.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller, Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:

JAMES: She's right, Kate's right, I'm right, and you're wrong. If you drive her away from here it will be over my dead-chair, has it never occurred to you that on one occasion you might be consummately wrong?

Related Characters: James Keller (speaker), Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller, Kate Keller, Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

(KATE moves to HELEN, touches her hand questioningly, and HELEN spells a word to her. KATE comprehends it, their first act of verbal communication, and she can hardly utter the word aloud, in wonder, gratitude, and deprivation; it is a moment in which she simultaneously finds and loses a child.)

KATE: Teacher?

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
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Kate Keller Quotes in The Miracle Worker

The The Miracle Worker quotes below are all either spoken by Kate Keller or refer to Kate Keller. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Communication Theme Icon
).
Act 1 Quotes

KELLER: Katie. How many times can you let them break your heart?
KATE: Any number of times.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

ANNIE: Any baby. Gibberish, grown-up gibberish, baby-talk gibberish, do they understand one word of it to start? Somehow they begin to. If they hear it, I'm letting Helen hear it.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:

KATE: Miss Annie. You see, she's accustomed to helping herself from our plates to anything she—
ANNIE [Evenly]: Yes, but, I'm not accustomed to it.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 47-48
Explanation and Analysis:

KATE: My Helen—folded her napkin—
(And still erect, with only her head in surrender, KATE for the first time that we see loses her protracted war with grief; but she will not let a sound escape her, only the grimace of tears comes, and sobs that shake her in a grip of silence.)

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: Mrs. Keller, I don't think Helen's worst handicap is deafness or blindness. I think it's your love. And pity.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: 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.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Kate Keller (speaker), James Sullivan / “Jimmie” (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

JAMES [in pain] Don't—
KATE: Captain.
KELLER: He's afraid.
(He throws JAMES away from him, with contempt.)
What does he want out of me?
JAMES [AN OUTCRY]: My God, don't you know?
(He gazes from KELLER to KATE.)
Everything you forgot, when you forgot my mother.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller (speaker), James Keller (speaker)
Page Number: 75-76
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

JAMES: What does he want from me?
KATE: That's not the question. Stand up to the world, Jimmie, that comes first.
JAMES [A PAUSE, WRYLY]: But the world is him.
KATE: Yes. And no one can do it for you.
JAMES: Kate.
(His voice is humble.)
At least we—Could you—be my friend?
KATE: I am.

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), James Keller (speaker), Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:

ANNIE: Yes, what's it to me? They're satisfied. Give them back their child and dog, both housebroken, everyone's satisfied. But me, and you.

Related Characters: Annie Sullivan (speaker), Helen Keller, Kate Keller, Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:

JAMES: She's right, Kate's right, I'm right, and you're wrong. If you drive her away from here it will be over my dead-chair, has it never occurred to you that on one occasion you might be consummately wrong?

Related Characters: James Keller (speaker), Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller, Kate Keller, Captain Arthur Keller
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

(KATE moves to HELEN, touches her hand questioningly, and HELEN spells a word to her. KATE comprehends it, their first act of verbal communication, and she can hardly utter the word aloud, in wonder, gratitude, and deprivation; it is a moment in which she simultaneously finds and loses a child.)

KATE: Teacher?

Related Characters: Kate Keller (speaker), Helen Keller
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis: