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Quotes From 'The Awakening'

Decent Essays

Chapter 19: "The Most Critical Time on This Earth Is Now" Quote: "Joe walked away from the murder scene, dropped the knife in a nearby alley, and headed to a pay phone to call his father, but the police had beaten him to it. They'd told Day his son had killed a boy. Sonny and Lawrence told their father to get Joe to Clover, back to the tobacco farms, where he could hide from the law and be safe" (Skloot, 147). Response: Why did Sonny and Lawrence tell their father to help Joe escape arrest? Didn't they know assisting a murderer in his getaway is illegal? If Joe was my sibling, I would have turned him in instead of harboring him because I could never bring myself to defy my morals so as to continue being loyal even though he's family. Quote: …show more content…

Is their immortality or the rare gene they carry the reason for this behavior? Have scientists discovered other cells which act the same way hers do? Quote: "...Gartler was also suggesting that spontaneous transformation- one of the most celebrated prospects for finding a cure to cancer- might not exist. Normal cells didn't spontaneously become cancerous, he said; they were simply taken over by HeLa" (Skloot, 154-155). Response: I agree with Gartler because if normal cells naturally turned cancerous, then that means that developing cancer is bound to happen to everyone at some point which is untrue considering there're dead people who've never had cancer. One doesn't randomly acquire cancer since it's triggered by a number of things such as genetics, poor diet, radiation, smoking, viruses and therefore isn't natural. Chapter 21: "Night Doctors" Quote: "A few months earlier, when Deborah gave me Lawrence's phone number and swore she'd never talk to me, she'd said, 'Brother gets made when white folks come askin about our mother'" (Skloot, …show more content…

Was he hoping she wasn't trying to take advantage of them like the rest and could answer questions he had about his mother's cells? Quote: "'Back then they did things,' Sonny said. 'Especially to black folks. John Hopkins was known for experimentin on black folks. They'd snatch em off the street...'" (Skloot, 165). Response: How was Johns Hopkins able to get away with abducting people? Didn't the family members and friends of those who vanished report their disappearances to the police? What happened to the abducted after the hospital was finished with conducting experiments on them? Chapter 22: "The Fame She So Richly

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