What is HeLa? Who is Henrietta Lacks? And how did this single woman change the entire perspective of the medical field? These questions will be answered in this following book report. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about Henrietta, who was born a poor tobacco farmer, whose cells were taken without her consent, but she quickly became one of the most important tools for the medical field, yet her name remained virtually unknown.
Part One: Life- In the beginning, the author creates an interest in learning more about Henrietta by intriguing the reader and lured the reader's (us) into the book, leaving us curious about the chapter to come. You don’t want to stop reading because you want to know what happens next. The author has a great
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They had no idea and were completely clueless of why they needed the blood. They also show this in the movie where a lady, Susan Hsu, comes to draw blood and rarely says anything about what she’s doing. This could be either or their faults because he could’ve explained, but she could’ve asked. I 100 percent agree that they should be penalized or be required to reimburse the Lacks family for using her tissue and selling it because the family never made a cent off of her cells, they never even told them what they had done to her cells, and they never even asked for the cells to begin with. I think the author agrees with me on how Henrietta should be treated because throughout the entire book, she sided with Henrietta and told from her perspective rather than the doctor. The Lacks family then somewhat changes from the beginning where they were “ride or die.” They didn’t seem as close as they were. Right then, they all looked as if they were all heading down the same path, the wrong path. Zakariyya was just out of prison, but had problems such as holding jobs, Sonny was in jail, and Alfred was on the same path. The Hayflick Limit is a concept that helps explain the mechanisms behind cellular aging. It says that a normal human cell can only replicate and divide forty to sixty times before it can’t divide and will break down into programmed cell death or apoptosis. Colfield managed to gain their trust by first being “ the cousin or Deborah’s husband’s former stepdaughter, or something like that” as well as when he called Deborah and sided with her saying she needed to protect herself and the copyright of her mom, Colfield was out to help them. They also agreed to go with him because of the price. I personally don’t think I would’ve been this persistent as Skloot in this situation because I’m not really interested in medicine, I like
HeLa was an immortal line of cells that led to many scientific discoveries. The book “The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” has many different points you can view from. The book shows how history changed over time, how being African American and poor gets you no rights to privacy, and most importantly how medicine advanced because of Henrietta’s cells. Henrietta was one of ten children. Her mother died while giving birth in a barn.
I love how she was able to gain the family’s trust and permission to tell the story. She treated the family with respect and was very open with the information she found. Many of the Lacks family members did not receive much formal education, so Skloot took time to explain the basic biology of what cells are and how Henrietta’s cells changed medicine. When Deborah or other family members incorrectly said information about HeLa cells, Skloot was quick to correct them. I do not think there was another method for Skloot to do her
Skloot's attitude toward the subject is revealed through her word choice. The chapter, "Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" from Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, states "He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else's malignant cells. " Skloot's choice of the word 'malignant' shows that she feels that Southam is harming innocent people. At first, the audience might feel that Southam is using safe cells to help the patients. The word choice helps the reader understand that the cells Southam is using on his patients are in fact not obliging.
But then Rebecca makes it more interesting by saying that the woman had a tumor that left her five children motherless, and that she changed the future of medicine. Afterwards she begins to talk about the person's name, and how no one knew who “HeLa” was. Everyone identify her as Helen Lane, but her real name was Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca the makes it more interesting by saying that Henrietta's Cells have lived more outside
She grew up without her mother and father. After Henrietta’s mother, who died giving birth to her tenth child, her father, who used a cane to get around didn’t have the patience to take care of ten kids. He separated the kids amongst family members because no one could take all ten kids. Henrietta went to live with her grandfather Tommy Lacks. She grew up
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Slacks taught the readers a few different life lessons. Many of which everyone may be able to relate to in their life right now. Rebecca Skloot’s did a wonderful job describing Henrietta's life to the readers. Henrietta Slack was a young black mother who discovered she had cancer in 1951. Her cells were taken without her knowledge to change the future of science and cancer.
Skloot was completely different than the bulk of reporters that contacted the family previously. Skloot wanted to tell the story of a strong mother who fought for her life and inadvertently produced a monumental discovery in science, and that is exactly what she
In this work of nonfiction, Rebecca Skloot writes about the life of a woman that unknowingly supplied her cells to scientific research. Additionally, Skloot expresses issues such as race, scientific methods, class, and ethics, that were raised by the HeLa cells. The novel commences with a quote by Elie Wiesel from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg code. The quote follows “ 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”.
After a painful month in New York, her relationships get extremely complicated with her mother and her college boyfriend Buddy Willard. With her relationships slowly drives her into madness. Sylvia Plath gets the reader’s attention by making the insanity of her character almost real and having it feel real for the reader. She keeps the reader’s attention by the suspense of the character going through things till the end. The beginning started a little slow, but when you get further into the book it gets better as you get to see more about Esther and what she sees, thinks and acts throughout the book.
Through the eyes of a holocaust survivor, Frankl showed the impressive search for meaning through his book. He also fulfilled this by discovering the grace, laughter and confidence in a life that was very difficult. Frankl conveys a message of hope throughout his book even as he speaks of the horrific events that took place in the concentration camps. Frankl learns that he needs to think of life in a more positive way after speaking with another prisoner at the camp and Frankl goes on to state, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.
3. What sections of the book are most persuasive and powerful? I feel like the middle and end are most powerful. Each character was trying to tell their story, in hopes of gaining a patient ear. For example, even though it was hard for grandma and grandpa to come out and express their feelings, they still did it in the form of letters.
Oprah Winfrey is an entrepreneur and philanthropist known for her award winning show ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ (1986-2011). "I don't think of myself as a poor, deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew she was responsible for herself- and I had to make good. "-Oprah
Oprah Gail Winfrey, 8 published books, 20 + awards and over 400 million dollars to a variety of worldwide causes. Oprah has set a great example to everyone. And all the children. Oprah has obviously had a great impact on the entire world. I bet it was rough through her childhood.
Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi and was born from an unmarried young couple. Her name was originally Orpah, but all the people called her Oprah so she kept this name. Also, her name was misspelled on her birth certificate so that is another reason why she has been called Oprah ever since. Oprah was raised by her paternal grandmother named Hattie Mae, in rural Mississippi on a farm without running water, and Oprah was taught how to read at the age of three mostly from studying the Bible.