Henrietta Lacks

Pathos and Suffering in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Emotions allow humans to better relate to one another, as well as understand one another’s situations, especially when topics such as suffering come about. Suffering appeals to the pity feelings within people, and therefore allows people to better understand another’s situation and truly relate to other people. In the 21st century scientific novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot uses emotion to show how people have the ability to connect well with one-another and feel each other’s struggles, because of the many emotions and struggles most people have, and therefore importance grows for people to understand each other. Emotion allows people to understand the

Skloot shows how people can understand each other’s pain because of the emotions, which hold importance in how humans feel and care for one another. The cancer and the treatment feel extremely painful for Henrietta, and bring on new pains and suffering each day. Suffering proves very most common in people, whether from illness, sadness, pain, or a variety of other reasons, and the emotion behind the suffering allows people to relate to others’ pain. Suffering embodies more than just physical pain. Emotional suffering often seems just as painful as physical suffering. Skloot shows how the emotional aspect of suffering hits Henrietta when she emerges from a horrible situation, and only concerns herself with other people, specifically, her ability to have more children: “Toward the end of her treatments, Henrietta asked her doctor when she’d be better so she could have another child. Until that moment, Henrietta didn’t know that the treatment had left her infertile” (47). Skloot shows how ignorance and complete

The entire Lacks family suffers, and feels deep emotion as they see Henrietta, their mother, sister, and cousin, suffer slowly and ultimately die. Deborah especially must endure prominent distress and misery as she has to grow up much without a mother, and also uncover the story behind the tragedy. The pain that Henrietta feels, largely passes to her family as they feel her pain as well. Families and friends always support one another, however in turn, they must experience and endure much agony because of the love they hold. When a person remains loved, the pain that they feel often passes to those who love them, as sadness and hurt always transfer to other members. As Deborah gives a speech and begins to speak to her mother, people can see the emotion and suffering as she says “we miss you mama,” as she goes on to speak to her mother and talk about how she thinks about Henrietta and how she wishes she could see and hold Henrietta in her arms, “like I know you held me” and talks about how she knows that “you deep in my soul, because I am part of you, and you are me” (221). Skloot shows how even watching somebody suffering, or feeling the loss of somebody can cause deep emotions and agony within people, especially families. Deborah must grow up without a mother, and endures the endeavor as she deals with the whole disaster of the death and the