In Chapter 1, Helen uses visual, auditory, and tactile imagery to evoke her nostalgia for her childhood home:
Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell, would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose myself in that garden of flowers, to wander happily from spot to spot, until, coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine, I recognized it by its leaves and blossoms[...]
This passage blurs the line between tactile and visual imagery by including phrases like "square stiff boxwood hedges." The attributes of squareness and stiffness can be seen, but they can also be felt. So, Helen might be describing them based on her memory of what they look like or based on her perception of what they feel like after she goes blind. Olfactory imagery includes her description of being "guided by the sense of smell" to the violets and lilies. Helen continues to emphasize olfactory imagery throughout the memoir as she visits new places. And most strikingly, tactile imagery appears as she hides her "hot face" in "cool leaves and grass," losing herself in the garden in a positive way and exploring the yard in order to escape her last fit of temper.
Throughout the first part of The Story of My Life, Helen uses visual, olfactory, and auditory imagery to describe her early childhood; in its first chapter, she continues to describe the garden in terms of color and flower type even after having lost her sight and hearing. She most often employs imagery when describing nature, which not only showcases her remarkable prose but also highlights the story's recurring theme of disabled people's ability to appreciate beauty and experience joy.
In Chapter 10, Helen uses tactile imagery to convey the joy and terror she experienced on vacation at Cape Cod:
My most vivid recollection of that summer is the ocean[...] No sooner had I been helped into my bathing-suit than I sprang out upon the warm sand and without thought of fear plunged into the cool water. I felt the great billows rock and sink. The buoyant motion of the water filled me with an exquisite, quivering joy. Suddenly my ecstasy gave place to terror; for my foot struck against a rock and the next instant there was a rush of water over my head.
Here, Helen describes the confluence of many sensations as her childish excitement leads her to leap into the sea "without thought of fear." Tactile imagery brings this "vivid recollection" to life; she recalls the warm sand, cool water, and the buoyant motion of the waves. Soon after entering the water, though, she feels her foot strike against a rock, and water rushes over her head. After being tossed back to shore, she recovers by sitting on a big rock and "feel[ing] wave after wave dash against [it]" as the air "throbbed with their pulsations." Although Helen does not again enter the sea, she loves the seashore and always longs to visit it.
In this passage, tactile imagery gives Helen's near-accident a more intimate and emotional tenor. This chapter emphasizes not only how the ocean felt but how it makes her feel. As a child without sight or hearing, she feels very out of control in the "wild frolic" of the waves before they toss her back to shore. Nonetheless, something magical about the waves and beach draws her attention and captures her imagination. From her first lessons with Miss Sullivan about the rivers and oceans of the world, she is fascinated by bodies of water, and she makes this moment all the more unforgettable by using vivid tactile imagery.
Olfactory imagery features prominently in The Story of My Life. For example, in Chapter 1, Helen describes the climbing roses at the Keller homestead as hanging "in long festoons from our porch, filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell." In Chapter 7, she notes the "spicy, clovery smell" of her pony's breath when she catches him in the pasture and puts a bit in his mouth. But the most impeccable example of olfactory imagery appears in Chapter 11 during her time at Fern Quarry:
Here were great oaks and splendid evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees, the odour of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood — an illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad[...] It was delightful to lose ourselves in the green hollows of that tangled wood in the late afternoon, and to smell the cool, delicious odours that came up from the earth at the close of the day.
This passage evokes Helen's nostalgia for her childhood home and recalls the first few pages of her story. Fern Quarry was just 14 miles from Tuscumbia, and its foliage differed in kind but was equally abundant. She describes the "odour" of the persimmon trees as an "illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad" and wonders at the "cool, delicious odours" of the earth. After Helen describes losing her sight and hearing, she begins to place more emphasis on olfactory imagery. Intuitively, it makes sense that Helen would rely more on her other senses. Careful readers will notice this subtle shift in her descriptions. The comparative lack of visual and auditory imagery does not in any way compromise the vividness of the passage—it rather makes her descriptions of nature all the more outstanding for their originality and depth.
