Logic In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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The Effect of Logic in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks People trust doctors to save lives. Everyday millions of Americans swallow pills prescribed by doctors to alleviate painful symptoms of conditions they may have. Others entrust their lives to doctors, with full trust that the doctors have the patient’s best interests in mind. In cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Crownsville Hospital of the Negro Insane, and Joseph Mengele’s Research, doctors did not take care of the patients but instead focused on their self-interest. Rebecca Skloot, in her contemporary nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, uses logos to reveal corruption in the medical field in order to protect individuals in the future. Some doctors …show more content…

Skloot mentions several cases where doctors hurt people with their actions. One of which occurs during one conversation between Henrietta and Sadie; “Hennie” shows Sadie her stomach which is “burnt… black as tar.” Henrietta says the cancer feels like the blackness “be spreadin all inside” of her (48). To build factual evidence of the corruption, Skloot directly quotes Sadie in order to ensure the event really took place. She uses logic to connect the factual side effects of cancer treatment to the imagery of tar. She effectively communicates the terrible job the doctors do to treat Henrietta. The blackness of Henrietta’s skin represents the blackness in the medical system. Skloot knows that people want to get better, and if the medical system continues to stay flawed no one ever will. Another case in which doctors treated patients inhumanly involves Henrietta’s eldest daughter. Skloot writes, “Elsie Lacks [died from] respiratory failure, epilepsy, [and] cerebral palsy” (270). All of these ailments occurred in a supposed hospital, meant for the mentally disabled. Skloot uses facts to help the reader logically follow the horror story of the Lacks family. She spells out exactly what doctors put Elsie through and helps to illuminate the terrible state of the medical world at that time. She uses fact as undisputed tributes of knowledge to back her claims, and to make them appear undeniable. Skloot emphasizes the terrible failure of the

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