Helen Keller and the Burden of Wonder.

Abstract

This essay examines the concept of "wonder" in relation to the life of deafblind author and activist Helen Keller (1880-1968), who was often billed in popular media as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." For Keller, being known as a "wonder" was not always a positive attribute: the term, far from being neutral, conceals the uneven power dynamic between the one doing the wondering and the one who inspires the wonder. Using excerpts from a range of sources-from Keller's second autobiography The World I Live in (1908) to hotelier Conrad Hilton's autobiography Be My Guest (1957)-the author argues that Keller was never a passive object of other people's wonder but a proactive agent of her own wonder-making. In the end, Keller endured the burden of being known as the "Eighth Wonder" while also resisting its cumulative effects.