Rebecca Skloot, The Author Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta

Rebecca Skloot, however, used a different perspective in her portrayal of Lacks. This is evident in the way in which she conducted her research and the way she wrote the book. Skloot’s book, The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, included both the “scientific element concerns the origin and the subsequent uses of the HeLa cell line of cultured cancer cells” (Harper, 2011, p. 463) and the social and

In Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she told the story of how a

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. She has composed this biography of Henrietta Lacks to inform her readers about the hard reality that the Lacks family went through. In order to grasp a better understanding about this novel we will first uncover some details about Henrietta and her cells. Next, we will discuss how she came from a large family and that they were originally from Virginia. Finally, we will examine what she did after she moved to Baltimore and what happened after the move throughout the first two chapters.

After her death in 1951, for six decades, Henrietta Lacks did not exist in the eyes of the society, but her cells did. How? Well, the answer is quite simple. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells. These cells never die and multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot essentially captured the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. With controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey. From the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover,

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

The Henrietta Lacks Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who is donating a portion of her book’s proceeds to the Foundation. Henrietta was a poor black farmer whose cancer cells had damaging consequences for her family who today can’t afford access to the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. The Foundation gives those who

The story took place in Baltimore in the early and mid 1900s, when prejudice was prominent and black people were not treated fairly or equally by white people. Moreover, the entire black community was terrified of night doctors, who would kidnap black people for scientific testing, and the book states that “fear of the night doctors only increased in the early 1900s, as black people migrated north to Washington D.C., and Baltimore” (166). This shows that the setting of the story had a huge impact on the book, as black people were taken advantage of routinely against their will. This is what happened to Henrietta, as she had to drive miles and miles to go to the only hospital around that would serve black people just to have her cells were taken without her consent by white scientists and used for the benefit of others. The author also uses many changes in point of view in the story to provide more background and portray the many different ideas and views of different people. For example, Skloot starts off telling the story from Henrietta’s point of view, showing her family and her struggles through her time with cancer. Then, she switches over to the eyes of a scientist who was working with Henrietta’s cells in a lab and working to grow the cells to benefit the scientific world. Finally, the author tells the story through her own eyes as she had to acquire information about Henrietta’s personal life through Henrietta’s family and the struggle she went through to get it. The setting of the story and the changes in point of view used by the author improve the story

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 and passed away on October 4, 1951. Towards the end of Henrietta’s life, it was filled with pain and doctors attempting to save her, or at least find something useful for the science or medical field. On the bright side, she did have the pleasure of seeing her children and husband while staying in John Hopkins. Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks illustrates the importance of family in hard times, along with the racist health care system and the advances made in science to prove that even through something detestable, something superior will come of it.

“The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot exposes the truth about a colored woman, Henrietta Lacks, who died from cancer leaving five children and a husband behind. Before her death doctors took her cells,without her or her family consent, to do there own research and experiments. They discovered that her cells were immortal, they became the first immortal cells known as the HeLa cells..After the discoverment the Lacks family were never told that Henrietta Lacks cells were used, bought and sold. Through the HeLa cells the scientist had made money while Henrietta kids were mistreated and were in poor situations.It wasnt till 25 years later that the Lacks family found out about the HeLa cells doing miracles. Rebecca Skloot though “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was able to explain the unethical situations that the Lacks family faced after Henrietta’s death.

Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, begins with a quote from World War II concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel, “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 source of anguish” (Wiesel qtd. in Skloot n. pag.). This quote serves as a preview of the book and its underlying moral purposes, as Henrietta Lacks and her family are continually treated as objects without rights to their privacy and without regards to their worth or feelings. The dehumanization of the Lacks family by the media and scientific community not only resulted in consequences for the family, but influenced society, as well.

When I first heard about the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", I thought it was just a reading assignment when I was in high school that I had to complete for a grade. As I began reading I became particularly interested in Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Rebecca Skloot talks about Henrietta Lacks and how her cells were taken without her permission, and how her family suffered afterwards. Skloot shows how medicine and science were seen back in the 1950's compared to now.

The non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, details the happenings and life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman and tobacco farmer who became a medical miracle in the 1950’s. The book is written in an attempt to chronicle both the experiences and tribulations of Henrietta Lacks and her family, as well as the events that led to, and resulted from, research done on Henrietta Lacks’ cells. Henrietta was a very average African American woman in this period; she had only a seventh-grade level education, and followed traditional racial and gender roles by spending her time has a mother and caretaker, as well as working on farms throughout her life until the involvement of the US in World War II brought her and her husband, “Day” Lacks, comparatively better work opportunities in industrial steel mills. However, after her death in 1951 Henrietta became much more than average to doctors at John Hopkins when the discovered that cells extracted from her cancerous tissue continued to live and grow much longer than any other tissue samples. Further investigation and isolation of these thriving cells led to the creation of the first ever immortal human cell line in medical history. The incredible progress in medicine made possible by Henrietta Lack’s tissue cells were not without downfalls, though. The treatments and experiences received by Henrietta and the effects it had on her and her family demonstrate both racial and gender

This colorful and vibrant woman impacts the world through the contribution of her cells to science as well as by the kindness beheld within her heart for her family, a kindness that permits the emergence of a story untold before, of the woman responsible for the way of the world. Henrietta, although a woman of many treasures, withholds vital information of her daughter Elsie, so as to protect her and the rest of her family. This, the news of her cancer, and other such secrets define Henrietta, yet have no waiver on the view of her family of her. Famous to her family, and cherished by all who know her, Henrietta made an impact greater than her cells, though secrets kept from the sharing of this impact with the family. “...she raised the vial and touched it to her lips. “You’re famous,” she whispered, “Just nobody knows it” (263). As Deborah holds onto the cells, she holds onto the long dreamt memory of her mother, and onto the secret of her identity, the identity that the family knows; this identity connects to the unique human side of her mother, the one for which includes secrets, treasures, anguish, and

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.

The effect the discovery and creation of the HeLa cells made on the science community and Henrietta’s family had a domino effect. Both had different opinions and beliefs on the matter; this led to some difficult questions asked of the family and of the medical community. Due to the new and advanced methods of experimentation, the HeLa cells made to to the field of science, the scientific community and the media failed to remember that Henrietta and her family were not abstractions but actual people. Rebecca Skloot, however, took into account the Lack’s family, she inquired both the history of the HeLa cells as well as the Lacks family, treating them as actual people with inalienable rights.