Non-fiction Essay Writing Prompt 1: Purpose
The novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by author Rebecca Skloot is about a black woman whose cells were used by doctors to study medicine without her knowledge or her permission. Rebecca Skloot first heard of Henrietta Lacks when she was 16-years-old in her college biology class. Her professor, Donald Defler, mentioned Henrietta briefly during his lesson about cells. Defler talked about how Henrietta’s cells helped scientists learn all they know about cell and cell culture today, and allowed them to develop disease-fighting drugs to combat herpes, leukemias, influenza, hemophilia and Parkinson’s disease. Although Defler did acknowledge the fact that it was Henrietta’s cells who helped change the future of medicine, all Defler added was that she was a black woman. Skloot was unsatisfied with this information and she wanted to know more about Henrietta Lacks, such as “Where was she from?... Did she know how important her cells were? Did she have any children?” (Skloot 4). The problem was, though, that no one cared to find out anything about the person whose cells were famous all over the world. Most people, in fact, did not even realize that her name was Henrietta Lacks, and not Helen Lane. All people knew about this woman was that her cancerous cells were referred to as HeLa cells. Thus, Skloot’s purpose was to inform people around the world about the life of the woman whose
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Though it wasn’t illegal at the time, it was completely wrong of the doctors to segregate her because of her ethnicity. Henrietta wasn’t treated properly as a patient and was discriminated against at the Hopkins hospital, like when a nurse labeled her blood sample as ‘colored.’ Henrietta would have most likely supported doctors taking her cells if it meant it was going to help countless people, if only she had the knowledge of
All I can say is amazing information of your glorious and late Henrietta Lacks. This incedible women bettered our society in ways no common human could understand at the time because of how complex this matter was and still very much indeed is. I know there is much contraversy with the matter of how scientists achived immortal cells from your late relative, and I do strongly agree with the fact that it was wrong for these researches to take advantage of this incredible women, but I know it is not for me to say nonethless it must be said that even though it was wrong to take Lacks’ cells when she was dying sometimes one must suffer to bring joy to the entire world.
An abstraction can be defined as something that only exists as an idea. People are considered abstractions when they are dehumanized, forgotten about, or segregated and discriminated against. The scientific community and the media treated Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions in several ways including; forgetting the person behind HeLa cells, giving sub-par health care compared to Caucasians, and not giving reparations to the Lacks family. On the other hand, Rebecca Skloot offers a different perspective that is shown throughout the book. Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes the trials and tribulations the Lacks family has gone through because of HeLa cells and shows how seeing a person as an abstraction is a dangerous thing.
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...
To have something stolen from you is devastating and can change your life. But what if what was taken from you will save billions of human lives? In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we see a woman named Henrietta had a biopsy of a cancerous tumor, and the cells from the tumor were able to live and grow outside of her body; and even better, the cells go on to find the cure for diseases such as polio. The catch is this: she signed a document giving her hospital permission to perform any medical procedure they find necessary to help her treatment, but she never gave specific permission for the cells in that biopsy to be tested and cultured. Now the big debate is over whether or not it was legal for her doctors
Imagine that you were Douglas Mawson, along with two other explorers exploring unknown Antarctica, when everything goes wrong. Douglas Mawson suffered more adversity than Henrietta Lacks and Phineas Gage. Henrietta Lacks is about a woman who died from cervical cancer and her cells were extracted; later to find that her cells were immortal. Phineas Gage was a normal man when an extraordinary thing happened—he had a iron rod go through his skull. Phineas gage didn’t go through as much hardship, but he did go through more than Lacks. Half way through Mawson’s journey, both of his partners died, and it was just him, all alone in Antarctica. So, as anyone could see, Mawson experiences the most adversity among the three figures for many reasons.
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.
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.
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.
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
Henrietta Lacks was born on August 18, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She stayed with her grandfather who also took care of her other cousins, one in particular whose name is David (Day) Lacks. As Henrietta grew up, she lived with both her Grandpa Tommy and Day and worked on his farm. Considering how Henrietta and Day were together from their childhood, it was no surprise that they started having kids and soon enough got married. As the years continued, Henrietta noticed that she kept feeling like there was a lump in her womb/cervix and discovered that there was a lump in her cervix. Soon enough, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Medical Center to get this check and learned that she had cervical cancer. But here is where the problem arises, Henrietta gave full consent for her cancer treatment at Hopkins, but she never gave consent for the extraction and use of her cells. During her first treatment TeLinde, the doctor treating Henrietta, removed 2 sample tissues: one from her tumor and one from healthy cervical tissue, and then proceeded to treat Henrietta, all the while no one knowing that Hopkins had obtained tissue samples from Henrietta without her consent. These samples were later handed to ...
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.
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.
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.
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
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.