The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Rhetorical Analysis

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.

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.

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.

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot examines the life of a young African American woman with cervical cancer named Henrietta Lacks. When Lacks goes in for her cancer treatments, cells are taken from her tumor without her knowledge. These cells, known as HeLa cells, go on to become an essential advancement in the medical world. Despite the important developments made because of HeLa cells, Lacks receives very little recognition for her cells. For this reason, Skloot dedicates over a decade to researching and telling the story of Lacks, her family, and the HeLa cells.

Despite the wrongdoings Henrietta Lacks was put through her cells did a lot to help advance science. Her cells helped develop different types of vaccines, which such as her daughter faced. A lot of good and bad came out of Henrietta’s

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman, living in the early 1900s in eastern United States. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of 31, on January 29, 1951. The doctors prescribed her treatment plan as several Radium sessions and an initial surgery to help extirpate the tumor from her body. However, in her first surgery, without obtaining consent, the doctors extracted more than just her tumor. They took samples Henrietta’s cells.

In the book one of the main points of the book was when Henrietta got diagnosed with cervical cancer. this is one of the main Contributing points of the story. The cervical cancer shows signs of unusual behavior of Henrietta cells because as stated by (Rebecca Skloot, 2000, p. 17) " Doctor Jones has seen thousands of cervical cancer lesions, but Henrietta 's was shiny, purple, and so delicate it bled when touch." As time went on Henrietta received her pulmonary results that stated (Rebecca Skloot, 2000, p. 27), " Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix Stage 1." When Henrietta arrived at Hopkins University for cervical cancer there was a nationwide debate going on about the types of cervical cancer, there was three key people of the debate that was Doctor Jones, his boss, and Richard Wesley Telinde.

One reason for this is because her worst experience was her death due to cancer. Most of her story is about her immortal cells and her family. Another bad experience was for her family. Henrietta’s cells did not stop reproducing which meant she had immortal cells. The doctors used the cells to discover cures for diseases and made a bunch of money.

Due to these sorts of racial discriminations in the medical and scientific setting, minorities have a higher death rate than the majorities in the United States. It is because of the mistrust of healthcare providers, and the lack of health insurance. Although Henrietta Lacks helped cure different diseases and viruses, without informed consent, her family was suffering. Just like the victims of the Tuskegee study, Henrietta was also a poor patient.

Celia’s life as an African American slave was so much different compared to the men because women slaves were not just about having to do work for their masters, but also they were

What is HeLa? Who is Henrietta Lacks? And how did this single woman change the entire perspective of the medical field? These questions will be answered in this following book report. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about Henrietta, who was born a poor tobacco farmer, whose cells were taken without her consent, but she quickly became one of the most important tools for the medical field, yet her name remained virtually unknown.

Language Arts Question 4 In the beginning of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, stated her goal and reason of writing the book. Learning biology in college, her professor mentioned Henrietta and her cells very briefly. Fortunately, this was enough to catch Skloot’s curiosity. She desired to learn more about the woman responsible for so many scientific breakthroughs.

Beast, devil, evil, corruption, the seven deadly sins, they all represent some form of evil within humankind. Lord of the Flies is the story of schoolboys that have crash landed on an unoccupied island, and go through many hardships as they fight for power and try to be saved. Throughout the story, however, they boys go from having a civilized structure to utter chaos, they struggle for their lives and grasp for survival from a darker creature on the island. Within chapter nine, Simon discovers the beast for what it really is; meanwhile Ralph and Piggy decide to join the other bigguns for a feast with Jack’s tribe. The boys play and dine, and circle together for a “dance” when Simon stumbles out of the forest to tell them of his discovery, and lands in the circle, which results in him being brutally beat to death. This attack on Simon demonstrates how the fear of the beast that the boys are experiencing is affecting their better judgment, and pushes their morals to the side, just so that they can feel safe. In chapter 9 of Lord of the Flies, William Golding employs repetition, animal imagery, and natural imagery to convey the theme that fear can corrupt humans, which pushes them to engage in unspeakable acts.

4. During the whole story Ms. Skloot continuously presents situations in which the lacks family is interacting with some individuals from the world of medicine. In these instances the author’s tone of writing sometimes makes it feel as though she is unconsciously or cunningly siding with the family. Especially in the third section of the book immortality where an assistant to the president of Hopkins named Ross Jones replied to a Sociologist by the name of Barbra Wyche who had written the letter to William Brody who was president in the letter she discussed whether the decision to take the cells and what they did for science was right. In Jones’s reply he stated that he was “uncertain what role Hopkins might play I’m any plan to celebrate

Brady uses multiple rhetorical devices such as; ethos, logos, and pathos in her article to support and make her claim strong.