The Immortals

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the story of a lower class, poor tobacco farmer, Henrietta Lacks who unknowingly has helped millions of people, after her death. Henrietta Lacks had discovered that a small “knot” in her stomach area, was actually cervical cancer, but the novel does not focus on her cancer, rather it focuses on her life, death, the issues her family faced with the medical field, and how her cells have saved the lives of millions of people. This novel is split into three…

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…

Hospital, the very place that would mark her death. These cells would eventually revolutionize the field of medicine and save millions of lives, but they also killed Henrietta, leaving her family behind in poverty and absolute turmoil. Throughout The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot most effectively appeals to her readers through the use of pathos, which causes them to become emotionally invested in the story behind Henrietta Lacks, the woman who changed the world of medicine…

In the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, many situations arose due to bioethical and morality issues against the patients protection and privacy. Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-one year old, African American woman who developed cervical cancer during the 1950’s. However, samples of her normal and cancerous cells were stolen from here without consent or even knowledge. Tragically, Henrietta died shortly after many chemo treatments and the malignant cancer spread to every…

different cases throughout the semester, reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks allowed me to see it from a whole new perspective. While I have learned quite a bit from all the discussion, the many assigned readings, and the overabundance of bioethics reference readings, this book truly carried my attention from cover to cover, pulling me into Henrietta’s family while sneakily telling me about Johns Hopkins research discovery of immortal cells. It showed me that ethics and legality aren’t…

intrigues the audience, but they need to keep the audience's attention and remind them how they can apply the concepts being used in the book, in their everyday lives. In Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Nafisi’s memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, both authors use their…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Elie Wiesel is quoted saying, “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, 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.” The story of Henrietta Lacks, or “HeLa” as she is most commonly known, is a story of how one woman changed history so much and yet she has very little recognition. The reason Henrietta Lacks is not a household name is…

turning point where those missed life experiences act as the sacrifice that ultimately aids all people. To have the ability to serve all of humanity is a massive honor; however, that honor does not mean equivocate to ultimate sacrifice. The novel "The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" By Rebecca Skloot subtly suggests that utilitarianism in medical ethics is necessary, so that everyone may benefit from medical discovery. However, the wounds of the deeply personal side effects, inflicted by…

True and False Self The most interesting comment made in Immortal Diamond is that, “our ongoing curiosity about our true self seems to lessen if we settle into any successful role” (Rohr, p. 9). Like many people, I have fallen subject to defining myself based on my successes and still never really finding true happiness. I always thought that being successful - having a prestigious job title, a big house, nice things etc, would lead to happiness. However, I have always found myself searching…

In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Rebecca Skloot provides an informational insider on the life of Henrietta Lacks- pointing out the ethical issues in Henrietta's operative. Henrietta, a woman who unknowingly had her tissue cells removed from her cervix by scientists were being used in wide-spread research. After reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", I started researching and came upon an article titled "Patient Safety: The Ethical Imperative". I began making connections that…