Book Analysis: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

1509 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What are medical ethics?

For 228 years, Black people have been categorized from Slaves, Colored/Free Colored, Mulattos, Negro, African Americans, and etc. The system in which these categories were created has also demoralized other non-white races, blatantly suggesting that those who aren’t full white aren’t full humans. In the novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot becomes fascinated with our protagonist Henrietta Lacks’ story involving the innovations through her cells and the way they’ve impacted the scientific community. But During Henrietta Lacks’ treatments at John Hopkins’s Institution, in an era of segregation and racism, Lacks undergoes procedures for an illness that becomes more of an experiment than a practice to save her life. Since Lacks is already seen as less of a human being, to the predominately white medical staff, her life is less valued and less appreciated as a patient, and due to racial categorizing, doctors, as well as researchers have treated Lacks and her family as creatures of an unknown species that represent their differences as abstracts. And Skloot interestingly begins with, and uses a quote from Elie Wiesel, who is a Nobel peace prize recipient, and a Romanian-born Jewish Holocaust …show more content…

The reoccurring theme the reader should notice is education; the lack of knowledge seems to have detrimentally put the Lacks’ family into situations they’ve suffered from, but because every negative situation around them had the common denominator of being black, they realized this was the reason for most of their hardships. During a visit to Crownsville’s hospital, Skloot and Deborah review a Washington Post article from 1958, the titled read, “Overcrowded Hospital ‘Loses’ Curable Patients”. (Skloot 274) and Deborah embraces the situation and

Show More
Related

  • Post- Emancipation Life in The Wife of His Youth by Charles Chesnutt

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    Post-emancipation life was just as bad for the people of “mixed blood” because they were more black than white, but not accepted by whites. In the story those with mixed blood often grouped together in societies, in hopes to raise their social standards so that there were more opportunities for...

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1147 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.

    Read More

  • Logic In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

    1523 Words  | 4 Pages

    Most people live in capitalist societies where money matters a lot. Essentially, ownership is also of significance since it decides to whom the money goes. In present days, human tissues matter in the scientific field. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, shows how Henrietta Lacks’s cells have been used well, and at the same time, how they have been a hot potato in science because of the problem of the ownership. This engages readers to try to answer the question, “Should legal ownership have to be given to people?” For that answer, yes. People should be given the rights to ownership over their tissues for patients to decide if they are willing to donate their tissues or not. Reasons will be explained as follows.

    Read More

  • Authenticity in Nonfiction: The Henrietta Lacks Story

    1642 Words  | 4 Pages

    In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot tells the true story of the woman who the famous HeLa cells originated from, and her children's lives thereafter. Skloot begins the book with a section called "A Few Words About This Book", in which a particular quote mentioned captured my attention. When Skloot began writing Henrietta's story, one of Henrietta's relatives told Skloot, "If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that's dishonest. It’s taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves" (Skloot). After reading that quote, an array of questions entered my mind, the most important being, "Do all nonfiction authors take that idea into consideration?" Nonfiction is a very delicate and

    Read More

  • Suffering and Struggle in Sonny´s Blues by James Baldwin

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.

    Read More

  • Book Review: The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine having a part of your body taken from you without your permission, and then having those cells that are a part of your body grow and are being processed in labs around the world and then ultimately being used for the highest of research. That is what happens to Henrietta Lacks. In the book, The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks, we see Henrietta Lacks and her families story unravel, the numerous hardships that they faced, and the shocking revelation that their relative cells were being used for research without her consent and theirs.

    Read More

  • Ethos in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    The credibility and trustworthiness of a person can be achieved through their achievements and titles. Writers have the ability of achieving this by appealing to the rhetorical strategy ethos. Rebecca Skloot’s inclusion of her knowledge in science to provide her credibility and numerous information of all her characters in the novel helps develop the rhetorical strategy of ethos. Skoot’s implementation of appealing to ethos aids in emphasizing on the credibility of both herself and all the other characters in the novel. She demonstrates this rhetorical strategy by indicating titles and achievements her characters in the novel. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot develops the rhetorical strategy of ethos through the use of her characters in the novel consisting of Skloot herself, George Gey, and the virologist Chester Southam.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Rhetorical Analysis

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, tries to convince the audience that her argument regarding, Henrietta and her cells is worth thinking about. Skloot argues that the woman whose body contained these life-changing cells deserved to be recognized. While trying to prove her side of the argument, Skloot uses logos within the novel to emphasize to the audience just how important her cells are, by providing the science behind the cells and their accomplishments.

    Read More

  • The Endless Chain of Exploitation, Illustrated in the Story of Henrietta Lacks

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...through society and enacting that awareness as a vehicle for change we are left to repeat these same injustices. Henrietta's cells gave society the ability to cure diseases, fight cancer, vaccinate children, and by leaps and bounds further our knowledge of biology at large. At what price does this progress come and who reaps these benefits? Henrietta's children do not have access to the advancements their mother's body is responsible for and nor do countless other individuals on this planet. Where is the line drawn? The extraction of HeLa cells without consent from Henrietta did not mark the exploitative end or the cells would have remained a communal property within the science community. The story of Henrietta and her cells is one small act of a greater play that showcases the exploitative nature of capitalism and the forlorn society it perpetuates indefinitely.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Ignorance

    1550 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rebecca Skloot retells the compelling story of an African American woman who contributed a great deal to science without adequate recognition. Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous cells, nicknamed HeLa, were sampled without her knowledge and poked and prodded for scientific research. Skloot writes her intricately detailed book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to express the various stories that have developed as a result of HeLa cells’ existence; She shares Henrietta’s life, death, the effects on science as well as the Lacks family and society as whole, and lastly her own experience. Each of these sectors see varying outcomes as a result of the creation of the HeLa cell line. While scientists benefited greatly

    Read More

  • Theme Of Medical Ethics In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, depicts the violation of medical ethics from the patient and researcher perspectives specifically when race, poverty, and lack of medical education are factors. The novel takes place in the southern United States in 1951. Henrietta Lacks is born in a poor rural town, Clover, but eventually moves to urban Turner Station. She was diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital where cells was unknowingly taken from her and used for scientific research. Rebecca Skloot describes this when she writes, “But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting sample or asked she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta's cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish” (33). The simple act of taking cells, which the physicians did not even think twice about, caused decades

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, was a nonfiction story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not know that her doctor took a sample of her cancer cells a few months before she died. “Henrietta cells that called HeLa were the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 22). In fact, the cells from her cervix are the most important advances in medical research. Rebecca was interested to write this story because she was anxious with the story of HeLa cells. When she was in biology class, her professor named Donald Defler gave a lecture about cells. Defler tells the story about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. However, the professor ended his lecture when he said that Henrietta Lacks was a black woman. In this book, Rebecca wants to tell the truth about the story of Henrietta Lacks during her medical process and the rights for Henrietta’s family after she died.

    Read More

  • Family Relationships in Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    1780 Words  | 4 Pages

    A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and about others. The effects on us mold our personalities and as a result influence our identities. This story shows us the efforts of struggling black families who transmit patterns and problems that have a negative impact on their family relationships. These patterns continue to go unresolved and are eventually inherited by their children who will also accept this way of life as this vicious circle continues.

    Read More

More about Book Analysis: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Open Document