ipl-logo

Skloot Essay On Henrietta Lacks

569 Words3 Pages

There is a large controversy over ethics and the part that it plays in medicine. Where is the line between advancement and patient rights? The issue of tissue ownership and information ownerships is only one of the many problems that Henrietta and her family are stuck dealing with. But, before Rebekkah Skloot introduces the readers to Henrietta and her cells, Skloot opens with an epigraph from Elie Wiesel. By using Wiesel’s epigraph Skloot creates the tone for the rest of the novel. The quote claims that people shouldn 't be viewed as an idea but rather as a source of knowledge and special qualities. That is the tone Skloot is trying to provide about Henrietta. Skloot doesn’t want us to view Henrietta as an abstraction but rather a treasure …show more content…

Although Henrietta is viewed as an abstraction by doctors and scientists; she was viewed as much more. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother who was there for her family. The main focal point of Skloot 's novel is HeLa but, it also shows her journey as a person. Henrietta contributed more than just cells to life. Henrietta reveals her treasures and her anguish through her family. She acts a rock for her family. Even in her hard times she manages to become the person to bring her family together. She did not have an easy childhood or an easy life but, she lived it as someone who embraced what she had. Her triumphs were not just from a couple of cells but from the family that she helped to provide for. We are able to view Henrietta as a person with feelings. Though nor Henrietta or Henrietta 's family were ever credited with the honor of all the good HeLa cells did, HeLa cells has helped every single person in some way. Henrietta was more than just her cells. Skloot helps us to understand that by using Elie Wiesel’s epigraph. The epigraph opens up the understanding of the importance to understand and appreciate a person and not view them as an idea, an abstraction. Henrietta is more than HeLa, her cells do not define who

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    171 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author demonstrates the harsh realities that many African Americans faced in the medical and scientific field during the mid 20th century. The author shows the unjust practices of this time period through interviews with the Lacks family and medical professionals. These harsh realities are proven when Skloot talks to Henrietta’s family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, explains how they took samples from Henrietta’s body without consent when Skloot writes, “Day clenched his remaining three teeth. "I didn't sign no papers," he said.

    Read More

  • Summary: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    903 Words  | 4 Pages

    The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot and examines the life of Henrietta Lacks and her peculiar situation with her mysterious cells. This paper will focus on chapter two in the novel and how it becomes the most important part of the book when it comes to understanding Henrietta’s life story. Chapter two is called “Clover (1920-1942)”, the chapter itself dissects the early life of Henrietta and the challenges she had growing up. In this chapter, it goes over the gender, economic, and racial obstacles that greatly impacted her. It is important to understand the socio-economic conditions that led Henrietta to be treated less than human.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks: Sexually Transmitted Disease

    1959 Words  | 8 Pages

    Group 2 Hela Essay Henrietta Lacks was a normal, young African American woman who lived a simple life by taking care of her family, including her husband (and also her first cousin) Dale, and their five children. Not long after she delivered her fifth child, Henrietta developed an aggressive cervical cancer caused by the sexually transmitted disease, HPV, which quickly caused her to lose her fight and pass away, yet her death and cancer cells also had a new beginning in the aspect of science: her cells taken from a biopsy continued to divide and became one of the most important cell lines in medical history.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Leavitt In Silent Sky

    723 Words  | 3 Pages

    The play, Silent Sky, follows the narrative of a 30-year old woman named Henrietta Leavitt and attempts to mirror Henrietta 's personal challenges with the obstacles that most women, in the early 1900s, had to undergo. Henrietta Leavitt can be considered the protagonist because she seems to have a set goal and she experiences the most substantial change, throughout the play 's entirety. She is first introduced as a small-town girl from Wisconsin with big ambitions but, gradually, as the story progresses, she morphs into a most valuable contributor to the field of Astronomy. Not only does her status and position in society change during the play, but she also learns many life lessons and achieves her goals. The character, Henrietta Leavitt,

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Henrietta Lacks

    438 Words  | 2 Pages

    The media and scientific community are guilty of viewing Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions. Nonetheless, the central argument of the book is that the scientific community has an ethical obligation to respect the dignity, autonomy, and person-hood of all subjects and individuals with whom it comes into contact. Accordingly, individuals cannot be made into subjects of scientific inquiry without their consent. And, when objects of scientific study (including, for example, the physical material scientists use within a laboratory setting) are sourced from individual people, those individuals deserve to be made aware of such sourcing, and when possible they ought to be appropriately compensated. Therefore, you can see how the scientific

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

    440 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maybe if the family wasn 't poor they would have been able to be rich and not have gone through so much about their mother 's cells. Maybe if they had money when Henrietta was alive none of this would 've

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Juxtaposition In Night

    661 Words  | 3 Pages

    To develop the theme of denial and its consequences, Wiesel uses juxtaposition and characterization. Wiesel uses juxtaposition to develop the theme of indifference and its consequences. Near the beginning of the memoir, Elie’s family is packing for their deportation to Aushwitz. There is absolute chaos, as Wiesel writes, “Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty ground” (15). Unlike the disorder, however, Elie, on the same page, writes, “All this under a magnificent blue sky.”

    Read More

  • Night By Elie Wiesel Human Nature Essay

    934 Words  | 4 Pages

    It becomes clear that Elie Wiesel`s commentary on human nature is that, during extreme circumstances, people are selfish and would achieve anything for their own survival. Furthermore, In Wiesel’s novel people strived to survive this injustice. For example, the Holocaust caused countless amount of

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    989 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bushra Pirzada Professor Swann Engh-302 October 4th 2015 Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has her cervical cancer. It further goes to tell the audience how Henrietta altered medicine unknowingly. Henrietta Lacks was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951; however, the doctors at John Hopkins took sample tissues from her cervix without her permission. The sample tissues taken from Henrietta’s cervix were used to conduct scientific research as well as to develop vaccines in the suture.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In Elie Wiesel's Speech

    806 Words  | 4 Pages

    Elie Wiesel voiced his emotions and thoughts of the horrors done to Jewish people during World War II whilst developing his claim. Wiesel “remember[s] his bewilderment,” “his astonishment,” and “his anguish” when he saw they were dropped into the ghetto to become slaves and to be slaughtered. He repeats the words “I remember” because he and the world, especially those who suffered in the ghettos and camps, would never be able to forget how innocent suffered. Consequently, he emphasized that “no one” has the right to advocate for the dead. Like many other people in the world, he lost his family during the war.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Thesis

    1020 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Analysis

    609 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel strives to inform his audience of the unbelievable atrocities of the Holocaust in order to prevent them from ever again responding to inhumanity and injustice with silence and neutrality. The structure or organization of Wiesel’s speech, his skillful use of the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos, combined with powerful rhetorical devices leads his audience to understand that they must never choose silence when they witness injustice. To do so supports the oppressors. Wiesel’s speech is tightly organized and moves the ideas forward effectively. Wiesel begins with humility, stating that he does not have the right to speak for the dead, introducing the framework of his words.

    Read More

  • Racism In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    743 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

    Read More

  • Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

    919 Words  | 4 Pages

    An essential part of modern society relied on trust, especially the trust of doctors and scientists. People had the right to make an informed decision about their bodies and body parts. People had a right to their body parts, both attached and cell samples collected by doctors. The actions that the medical professions made will continue to affect future generations in both positive and negative ways. In the contemporary biographical novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot used logical opinions to argue about the importance of consent to reveal the lack of morality from those in the medical field which continues to persist today.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks: A Literary Analysis

    1727 Words  | 7 Pages

    Family, for most people, is defined as a sort of safe haven for people to go to. For others, families may be fragmented, split, or may have wrong ideals as a whole. Broken families, while they may have a long lasting effect on the spouses, can also have a detrimental, long-lasting effect on the children of these marriages which can lead to certain mental illnesses. For example, in the story of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Deborah faces the emotional effects of her mother’s death. Other stories such as “A Rose for Emily”, show how Emily 's fathers parenting techniques and a lack of a mother figure burdened her future.

    Read More

More about Skloot Essay On Henrietta Lacks

Open Document