Annie Sullivan
Annie is the titular character, the woman who works the miracle: reaching and teaching the young blind, deaf and mute daughter of the Keller family. Annie herself was blind as a child and learned how to read and write at the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Later, surgery helped Annie to see again and she arrives at the Alabama home of a former Civil War officer with Yankee bluntness and a lack of conventionally expected feminine deference.
Arthur Keller
Capt. Arthur Keller is not just traditionally inexplicably proud of the Confederacy, but a chauvinist who finds Annie Sullivan an affront to the traditional submissive status of women in society. This brings him into conflict with her because he is also emotionally distressed over the afflictions facing his daughter and desperately wants to ensure she learns independence and how to take care of herself, which Annie is convinced she teach.
Kate Keller
Arthur’s second wife and mother of Helen. The arrival of a new baby changes the dynamic of the domestic situation in the household, making Helen’s intractability and destructive tendencies more and more unbearable. She is instrumental in the role of negotiator between two strong-willed figures of opposing views nevertheless aiming for the same goal.
James Keller
James is another source of tension and conflict within the family. His jealousy of the attention his half-sister Helen receives has served to intensity the natural alienation he feels toward Kate as a stepmother. His respect for his father is pitted against resentment for marrying another woman and all these roiling emotions lead to cynical treatment of the idea of teaching Helen and a rebellion against his father’s domineering nature. Annie’s arrival reveals a respectable alternative to his current ways.
Aunt Ev
Sister to the Captain and the embodiment of Southern opposition to the arrival of the Yankee from Massachusetts. Nevertheless, she is devoted to Helen and the most insistent voice in the household propagating the idea that she should just be allowed to be a child, attributing Helen’s often titanic outbursts of anger to mere immaturity.
Helen Keller
The epicenter of the drama is the seven-year-old blind, deaf, and mute girl who will eventually wind up ranked number five in a 1999 Gallup poll of the most admired people of the 20th century. But before Helen do all the things which helped her attain that status, she must first learn simply how to read and write.
