Henrietta Lacks The purpose of Rebecca Skloot’s book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” is to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks, her illness, and how she completely changed science without even knowing it. Henrietta Lacks, a name that had been known to the world only as HeLa up until recent years; the first two letters of a name that belonged to a poor African American tobacco farmer. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951 and HeLa, the line of cells taken from Henrietta that were the first line of cells to reproduce and survive in the lab indefinitely. Rebecca Skloot uses rhetorical devices throughout the book such as; logos, ethos, and pathos to appeal to the audience and help spread public awareness of this …show more content…
Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with extremely aggressive cervical cancer at the age of 30 and within the year it progressed and she died. Skloot's very vivid medic terminology, as well as her frank and at some points disgusting imagery truly captures her conditions horror. Also not to mention the emotional pain felt by her family and friends as they watched her die. Her story is told in detail in the book, and is something many people can relate to, since cancer is such a common disease. However, Henrietta's personal story is not the only way the book elicits pathos. Later in the book, as Skloot actually gets close to the members of the Lack's family it becomes more and more apparent that they are angry Hopkins took Henrietta’s cells without her consent and that no one had informed them either after she died. Lawrence tells Skloot, “She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance” (Skloot 168)? This shows the Lack’s think it is unfair that Henrietta had, unknowingly, contributed so much to the scientific world, but her family is living in poor areas and conditions without any health
In her work, Skloot reveals Henrietta Lacks to be an African-American woman whose cervical cells were biopsied without her consent. These cells, known as HeLa (a combination of Lacks first and last name), have since been shared among various scientists and researchers and been the framework for ground-breaking research. Unlike other works on Henrietta Lacks, Skloot set out to tell
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.
Ethics throughout science are very controversial as they are the model of distinguishing between right and wrong throughout all aspects of research. Throughout Honeybee Democracy and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks we are given an insider’s perspective to the ethics, or the lack there of, regarding the ongoing research and the researchers conducting it. Although the books cover very different subject matter, there are divisions of their research and within their individual ethics that are almost indistinguishable. One of the most highly debatable and common questions of ethics stems from the idea of whether it is acceptable to sacrifice lives for science.
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.
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
By removing her name, Henrietta Lacks was dehumanized by the scientific community. Henrietta’s cells were taken from her unethically without permission. When the initials HeLa were assigned to her cells, Henrietta was not given the recognition or respect that was so rightfully deserved to her. It took George Otto Gey’s assistant, Mary Kubicek seeing Henrietta’s dead body lying on a metal table in the “colored freezer” of John Hopkins hospital to realize that she was indeed a real person, who had once carried out all of the necessary functions for life, just as she herself
Poverty also led the Lacks 's family to injustice for them and their mother 's cells because they simply couldn 't afford a lawyer. The book says, "So in attempt to get Hopkins to give them what they saw as their cut of the HeLa profits they made handouts about Henrietta Lack 's family being owed their due, and gave them to customers at Lawrence 's store". This illustrates that although Lawrence and Sonny couldn 't afford a lawyer, the next best thing was to spread the word, and also shows how they just had to make do with what they had. Rebecca Skloot shows how poverty was a major problem for the Lacks 's family in, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". Ranging from medical problems to being an easy target to having injustice.
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.
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
Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from the south who, in 1950, at the age of 30, she was diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer. Lacks went to John’s Hopkins medical center for treatment for her cancer. In April of 1951, she underwent surgery to remove the larger tumor on her cervix. Henrietta Lacks, died three days following the surgery. Even though Henrietta Lacks died, her cells from the tumor have lived on and have made a major impact on the biomedical community.
The lack of involvement also displays with the state of Deborah and Zakariyya described as “trance,” “mouths open,” and “cheeks sagging” after having learned of the fate of Henrietta (265). Henrietta’s children grew up not knowing and understanding what happened to heir mother, which Skloot used to display the sufferings of the Lackses. Dissociation with families of scientific subjects caused harm to the
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.
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.
The Immortal Life ultimately evolves from being the factual story of Henrietta Lacks to being the predisposed story of Rebecca Skloot. Rebecca Skloot does accomplish her primary goal in writing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – shedding light on the woman behind HeLa and the complications she and her family faced. But with inconsistencies in character development, a diminishing plot sophistication, and a potentially biased point of view, The Immortal Life is questionable in terms of its excellence as a piece of creative
Brady uses multiple rhetorical devices such as; ethos, logos, and pathos in her article to support and make her claim strong.