Henrietta Lacks Book Report

Improved Essays
Rebecca Skloot, the writer for the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, has been obsessed with Henrietta since she was sixteen-years old. Skloot tried looking up more information about Henrietta and her family but she couldn’t find any information. That’s when Skloot decided that she wanted to tell Henrietta story by writing a book. With Rebecca trying to get in contact with Henrietta daughter Deborah. Skloot didn’t know that the family would become hostile to the fact that they didn’t want to talk to her due to them thinking she was another reporter trying to get information about Henrietta cells.
Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman and a mother of five children living in Baltimore, suffered much pain to the point she described
…show more content…
Henrietta children and their children have suffered greatly with no health insurance and living in poverty. Although her cells have had attention and money it was still no help to the family. It raises questions about bioethics on who should benefit from scientific research and how should it be conducted. Deborah daughter did say “If our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors?” (Skloot 9). This is very important because it shows that the family didn’t get any answers from the science community and no one really explained to them why Henrietta cells were so important. Skloot did a really good job on making sure everything in the book was important, because the book has steps of how “HeLa” cells came about and how Henrietta passed away. It also leads to an understanding of how it affected her children when they got older and how they were confused on why the science community didn’t want to help them and the science community making profit and not her family. This book is very interesting and a good understanding for people to know that cases like this one happen in the world all the time, they are just not

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Immortal LIfe of Henrietta Lacks is the story of cell research developing and the story of Rebecca Skloot and Deborah Lacks learning about the elusive Henrietta Lacks. It is a true story written by Skloot, and was eventually published February 10, 2010. The author also does a good job of joining the scientific aspects of Henrietta’s life while still holding on to the social aspects of the book, as well as making it easy to read for people who don’t know much about the going ons of science. The book begins in 1920 when Jim Crow laws still existed and segregation was at large.…

    • 2319 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book, Henrietta Lacks’ family was consistently bothered by people who wanted to ask them questions; her friend Courtney Speed insisted that Skloot cannot know the information before getting the Lacks family’s consent. From various examples from the book, I perceived almost every single person had a different point of view of HeLa cells. Some disliked them, while some deemed them important. Therefore, I believe that it will be interesting to discuss everyone’s personal standpoint of HeLa…

    • 1321 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Skloot makes sure that none of the events shown in her book are her portrayals of each character. Their words are not interpreted or altered in any way and the voice of each character is raw and direct from the source. The characters are developed in two ways. From a third person point of view in which she describes the Lacks family’s past or by the direct dialogue between Skloot and the Lacks family. Also, the main rhetorical device to keep the rule of “show, don’t tell” is diction of the Lacks Family.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1950’s Maryland, segregation was at it’s height-Jim Crow laws were in effect, schools were separate but equal, and the Klu Klux Klan had a mainstream following. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, whose cancer cells were taken from her without her permission. Though her lifespan only amounted to 31 years, the effect of her immortal cells will last an eternity. Although Henrietta was an African American woman, she received the best treatment available for her cancer at the time; however, her race affected her life greatly. Contrary to popular beliefs, Henrietta Lack’s race had little effect on her cells and the way she was treated in the hospital, in fact, she was given the best treatment that was available at the time.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a true story about a poor black woman whose cells were taken from her without her consent, becoming an important tool in science. Through the use of research and storytelling, Skloot tells the story of the life of the woman who unknowingly donated her cells to science, greatly advancing the medical institution, while her family struggled to pay health insurance. Skloot tells the emotional story of the Lacks family, answers questions about the HeLa cell, addresses the racial and ethical issues in medicine, all while using storytelling and credibility in order to expose the truth about Henrietta Lacks and her cells. Rebecca Skloot begins the novel by introducing the idea of the lack of…

    • 2109 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Henrietta Lacks Eugenics

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, the are many adversities that poor people, especially those of “colored” had to deal with. Many individuals of which were victims of the eugenics program. The eugenics program was a way of creating a population of more desirable (the whites), and getting rid of the undesirables ( all others who did not meet the criteria of society then). The way that this was carried out was through forced sterilization, and/ or elimination by death. Even though Henrietta lived in a time period where this was more than likely to happen to her.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The History Of Hela Cells

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Henrietta Lacks was a 30- year - old black mother of five when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. She went to Johns Hopkins hospital to have the tumor looked at; they took a sample and sent her home. A few weeks later, when Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. was prepping Henrietta for treatment he took two samples from her one from the tumor and one from her healthy cervix. He never asked Henrietta if he could take these samples from her. Dr. Wharton Jr. took the samples down to Dr. Gey’s lab; he got excited but thought the cells would just die like all the rest.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The countless facts, statistics, and explanations Skloot provides through logos make it easier for the reader to understand. For example, Skloot clearly defines that immortal cells are, “a continuously dividing line of cells all descended from one original sample…that would constantly replenish…and never die” (30). This definition is important because immortal cells are what Dr. Gey was first able to successfully create with Henrietta’s cells, which sparked a new age of medicine and the hysteria over HeLa. As Skloot continuously uses background information to defend the Lacks’ unimaginable situation, she is able to prove that it is possible to incorporate reason and logic into such a personal story. Ethos is also important because Skloot’s reliability and trustworthiness allow her to appeal to not only the readers, but to the Lacks as well.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The actions that were taken didn't just affect Henrietta but her family as well especially her daughter Deborah. Henrietta's family didn't even find out about her cells till a few years later and they don't even have medical insurance, many said they should-be been given credit; "patients and, when appropriate, their families are informed about the outcomes of care, treatment, and services that have been provided including unanticipated outcomes. " Plus, they misdiagnosed her cancer since it was much more severe than…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Skloot took the time to get to know the family and really care about them and their feelings. She looked at the cells and saw the person rather than the benefits. Rebecca Skloot even said, “For me, it's writing a book and telling people about this story.” Rebecca Skloot is the reason that the story of Henrietta Lacks is available to anybody who wants to read it. There was one other person in the book who took the time to be patient with the family and his name is Christopher Lengauer.…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She is a science journalist that did not believe in supernatural things. But throughout her visits with the Lacks family, she soon acknowledges the importance of religion and appreciates it more than before. Gary, the most religious one in the family, hands her the Bible and instructs her to read the passages; “In that moment, reading those passages, I understood completely how some of the Lackses could believe… that Henrietta had been chosen by the Lord to become an immortal being. If you believe the Bible is the literal truth, the immortality of Henrietta's cells makes perfect sense” (Skloot 296). She realizes that the Lacks family perceives Henrietta’s death differently than the doctors at Hopkins-by spiritually.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Henrietta’s cells have revolutionized Science, but never did she receive the credit she should…

    • 1232 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On February 8th of 1951, the immortality of HeLa cells was discovered. Such breakthrough caused an outburst in scientific development and the release of ways to cure millions of diseases, including, but not limited to, polio, cancer, leukemia, and hemophilia. Following this further, Rebecca Skloot is able to describe the person behind the HeLa cells and the interminable process that she had to go through in order to attain enough information to write about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. Skloot’s utilization of rhetorical strategies – the use of ethos, logos, and pathos – effectively engages and retains the reader in the life experience of not only Henrietta and her surroundings, but also in Skloot’s research journey on the lookout for unpublicized but highly valuable information. Skloot strived on finding and publicizing Henrietta Lacks’ life story, including those small details that not even her children had heard of before.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    One of the most fundamental trust relationships is between a patient and their doctor. Physicians have supposedly earned their trustworthy title because of their extended education and desire to help others. However, this perception is being shattered by physicians violating patients’ trust by not providing all the information needed for making a responsible decision for a person’s health and performing unimaginable procedures. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” provides multiple examples of the unethical practice of doctors. When scientists do not recognize their subjects as human beings and their relationship results in an unbalanced power dynamic, their advantageous position often leads to the unethical treatments of subjects, especially…

    • 1566 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It mainly focuses on the medical process behind culturing Henrietta’s cancer cells, named HeLa cells, and how Henrietta and her family faced obscurity from the medical community. This is unique to me because it not only touches with medical ethics and but it also provides some scientific insight into how these cells function and how they can be used for good. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was an extremely fun and interesting book for me to read. The plot of the novel not only focuses on the life and struggles of Henrietta and her family, but it also brings to life the topic of medical ethics, which is a topic that I find extremely fun to read.…

    • 1546 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays