Accompanied by Deborah Lacks, Rebecca explores the world of science and medicine in order to better understand the scientific perspective on Henrietta Lacks and HeLa. Given that Henrietta’s immortal cell line has played such a crucial role in the evolution of modern science and medicine, Skloot understands that her narrative account would be incomplete without consideration thereof. However, Rebecca also considers that the scientific knowledge of Henrietta and HeLa began to develop even before her death, and grew just as quickly as the cell line did, thereby proving one of the most thoroughly-developed and collected sources of knowledge about Henrietta. A final consideration for Skloot is that the rapid advances in scientific knowledge occurred unbeknownst to the Lacks family. Therefore, Skloot’s exploration of science pertaining to Henrietta is at once a historical, medical, and reparative effort that acknowledges various disparities of information and …show more content…
It reminds that “We must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” In Skloot’s narrative attempt to piece together this universe of Henrietta Lacks, she realizes and expresses the challenges of this attempt. Skloot’s work is an effort to represent and depict Henrietta as she lived, rather than just as a line of immortal cells or untold stories. It is an attempt to restore personhood, wholeness, and voice to a fragmented picture. It is an attempt to reconcile various, sometimes competing versions of knowledge, each of which lends to, but also complicates the greater understanding of Henrietta’s story. It is an attempt to appreciate the complexity and depth of life and to encourage constant exploration
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.
In February 2010, author and journalist Rebecca Skloot published a book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which included the stories surrounding the HeLa cell line as well as research into Henrietta Lacks' life. In 1951 a poor young black women, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and at the time was treated in the “colored ward” or segregated division of Johns Hopkins Hospital. The procedure required samples of her cervix to be removed. Henrietta Lacks, the person who was the source of these cells was unaware of their removal. Her family was never informed about what had been accomplished with the use of her cells. The Lacks family has not received anything from the cell line to this day, although their mother’s cells have been bought and sold by many. This bestseller tells the stories of HeLa and traces the history of the cell while highlighting the ethical and legal issues of the research.
Rebecca Skloot has done a marvelous job telling the story of Henrietta Lacks; the woman who changed science!
The author of the book titled "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" was the only person to truly pay homage to Henrietta and her family. Rebecca Skloot took the perspective that Henrietta and her family were real life humans and she never strayed away from that. Rebecca went through extensive measures to travel and get the research found in her book correct, while telling an accurate and vivid account of Henrietta's life. Rebecca Skloot was the only person to see beyond the abstraction of Henrietta and be a big help to Henrietta's family. Rebecca
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.
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
Henrietta Lacks’ story is disturbingly similar to that of the Law and Order episode, Immortal. Particularly, they both share the same basic premise. In Rebecca Skloot’s account of Henrietta’s life, she explains. “. . . though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor, [Dr. Lawrence Wharton, Jr.] picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of ...
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.
Rebecca Skloot begins The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with a quote from Elie Wiesel:
I was a science journalist who referred to all things supernatural as “woo-woo stuff”; Deborah believed Henrietta’s spirit lived on in her cells” (p. 7). Here, Skloot tells about where herself and Deborah Lacks were from and their feelings about “supernatural” occurrences. Skloot draws a contrast between the backgrounds and sentiments of herself and Deborah to demonstrate the differences that upbringing and environmental influences can arouse in two people; Skloot introduces the dynamic of race to demonstrate that race and economic status were, and still are,
Though her cells made many advancements in medicine, simply informing the family would have been the respectable and responsible thing for the doctor to do. The statement that Henrietta beat science was made and at first I had no idea what was meant by this. Her cells had multiplied by 400 times her body weight after the cells were taken and stored. The cell biologists had no idea how or why. The more time that was spent studying these cells, the more questions that arose in the quest to find the cure for cancer, the greatest in medicine were being defeated by the cells of an African American woman. Therefore, when the statement is made that Henrietta beat science, I take it as her condition and cells were so complex that even the greatest minds could not figure out why they did what they did. She still contributed to many other solutions that could save millions and billions of
In “Part 1: Life” of “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, she starts telling us the life of Henrietta, where she grew, that she married Day, and everything she went trough with her cancer. But, more than that, Skloot is trying to show us the ethical, social, and health issues black people had back in those days, and also she wants to let us know how lucky we are to live in this period where we have a lot of opportunities, racism is not a strong movement but still affects the society a little, and of course give thanks to the advances of the medical and science world most of it because of the HeLa cells.
...arch and practices introduced in the book. She brings a sense of clarity for the readers to understand the back-to-back diverse situations she implements. Skloot describes what the family was put through in both not knowing and finding out about Henrietta’s cells, as well as describing the reactions the family had to the situation. She gains credibility by telling about the family’s history involving the different places she visited such as Clover, Virginia where Henrietta was raised, the home-house in which she grew up in, as well as the unmarked grave in which her body lies beneath.
In the novel The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author tells the miraculous story of one woman’s amazing contribution to science. Henrietta Lacks unknowingly provides scientists with a biopsy capable of reproducing cells at a tremendusly fast pace. The story of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates how an individual’s rights can be effortlessly breached when it involves medical science and research. Although her cells have contributed to science in many miraculous ways, there is little known about the woman whose body they derived from. Skloot is a very gifted author whose essential writing technique divides the story into three parts so that she, Henrietta
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