Read the excerpt from A Short Walk Around the Pyramids and through the World of Art. This bronze sculpture stands in the courtyard of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D. C. It is the work of a sculptor named Jacques Lipchitz and was made in the years 1926-30. Because it is bronze, it wasn't carved. Instead, the artist shaped it in plaster. The plaster was taken to a foundry, where a mold was made from it. Molten bronze was then poured into the mold, and when it cooled and was opened, Figure, as the work is called, emerged.

Sidebar:

Jacques Lipchitz was a Russian sculptor who lived in France and the United States in the 1900s. He is famous for his bronze sculptures of figures and animals.

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the miracle worker themeswilliam gibson

themes and meanings

(comprehensive guide to drama)

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there are two central themes in  the miracle worker: that the human spirit can triumph over even the most daunting of disabilities and that a dedicated teacher can transform the lives of those with whom he or she comes into contact. these inspirational themes have long been personified in the widely known true-life relationship between helen keller and annie sullivan, but  the miracle worker  also dramatizes collateral issues that extend beyond the particular case. underlying helen’s process of learning basic principles of what annie terms “obedience” (decorum, etiquette, and hygiene), there are more universal lessons of self-governance—the inculcation of self-restraint instead of willfulness, the development of self-discipline instead of self-indulgence. only when these lessons have been mastered can helen begin to acquire language—which, annie says, “is to the mind more than light is to the eye.”

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