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Essay Questions For Henrietta Lacks

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Question #1 Some examples of the main characters not having access to a good education, specifically from the scientific field are in the beginning. It’s explained that when Henrietta was at the hospital that she had the education of an early middle schooler. She wouldn’t have a complete understanding of the “lump” she felt, but she would have a general assumption about what it is if she had a complete education. Later in the book, the reader is made aware that Henrietta’s husband, “Day” (Day, being a nickname for David) had “...only gone to school for four years of his life, and he never studied science”, not being able to understand the concept of immortal cells when asked for blood. Henrietta’s youngest son, Joe drops out of school arguing with teachers, …show more content…

This anger coming from the abuse and punishment given from Henrietta’s cousin Ethel. After Joe’s mother’s death, Ethel takes Henrietta’s house with her husband Galen and punishes Joe the worst. Elsie, (who had a mental disability, and epilepsy) early on was misunderstood by the Lackses for being different or “simple” due to their lack of education. This is another example that if that family had the option, or kept pursuing their education they could find out a general, basic answer to their situations. Which makes the story sadder because they went into their situation handicapped without details. Henrietta’s oldest child Lawrence who was drafted to war, dropped out of school as well to care for his family. These are just some examples of the lack of education limiting the Lacks family from being able to understand the events going on in their family at the time. Most of the main characters (under the Lacks family tree) had only a few years of education. Meaning they were limited to the options of help or advice they could be given that they would understand immediately because of this weakness in education in

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171 Words | 1 Pages

In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author demonstrates the harsh realities that many African Americans faced in the medical and scientific field during the mid 20th century. The author shows the unjust practices of this time period through interviews with the Lacks family and medical professionals. These harsh realities are proven when Skloot talks to Henrietta’s family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, explains how they took samples from Henrietta’s body without consent when Skloot writes, “Day clenched his remaining three teeth. "I didn't sign no papers," he said.

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158 Words | 1 Pages

In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks chapter 23 “It’s Alive” it talks about Bobbette Lacks. Bobbette Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter-in-law, had dinner at her friend's house when she found out that her friend had been working with HeLa cells. While in disbelief, Bibbette asked Gardenia why no one had told Henrietta's family that the part of her was still alive. Dr. McKusick, a scientist who first published Henrietta’s name, had access to Henrietta’s children and husband’s medical records.

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535 Words | 3 Pages

Having the opportunity to discuss the impact of medical research performed on Henrietta Lacks’ cells with doctor George Guy would be an experience like no other. Through the use of Henrietta Lacks’s cells, George Guy created an industry that would fuel research throughout the scientific community. When Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the hospital for radiation treatments, doctors took samples of her cervical cancer cells. Henrietta was not informed that one of the two samples was sent to George Guy, a scientist researching the immortalization of human cells. Guy soon realized that these cells were able to grow outside of the human body, they even grew rapidly.

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1176 Words | 5 Pages

022300 Courtney Davis Mrs. Allinder IB Literature 10 October 2016 Emotional Ties Created In The Reader Thesis: In the creative non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, creates emotional ties to the reader through the character, Deborah. Topic Sentence: Deborah was spoken about by Skloot before Deborah appeared as a live character with dialogue to form a founding idea about Deborah in the reader. Evidence: When Skloot had finally received Deborah’s number from Pattillo, Pattillo gave Skloot a list of what to do and what not to do when “dealing with” Deborah. He told her not to be aggressive or “clinical”, not to force Deborah to do anything, and definitely “don’t talk down” to her because “she hates that”.

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562 Words | 3 Pages

What is the purpose of a legacy?In both stories, their legacy is changing the medical industry. Both authors carefully depicted the effect the stories will have on future generations. They expressed this by using writing styles such as, detail and imagery. “You’ve got bad blood” is a story that explains what the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was. Showing how the participants of the experiment were mistreated and lied to.

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903 Words | 4 Pages

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot and examines the life of Henrietta Lacks and her peculiar situation with her mysterious cells. This paper will focus on chapter two in the novel and how it becomes the most important part of the book when it comes to understanding Henrietta’s life story. Chapter two is called “Clover (1920-1942)”, the chapter itself dissects the early life of Henrietta and the challenges she had growing up. In this chapter, it goes over the gender, economic, and racial obstacles that greatly impacted her. It is important to understand the socio-economic conditions that led Henrietta to be treated less than human.

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

Language Arts Question 4 In the beginning of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, stated her goal and reason of writing the book. Learning biology in college, her professor mentioned Henrietta and her cells very briefly. Fortunately, this was enough to catch Skloot’s curiosity. She desired to learn more about the woman responsible for so many scientific breakthroughs.

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474 Words | 2 Pages

This reading consisted of an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In this excerpt the author has visited the home of the living relatives of Henrietta. They show distaste and skepticism towards her due to her being white and asking questions about their mother, Henrietta Lacks. However they seem to warm up to her and tell her about what had happened to their mother. Henrietta awas a cancer patient, and when she died the doctors had asked permission to use her cells, on the premise that it would help prevent her children from dying from the same illness.

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744 Words | 3 Pages

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is much more unique than any other books I read before this. The books involves with the Henrietta Lacks who has cervical cancer that turns to be non operational. Henrietta eventually dies, until to be autopsy for research and finding a vaccine for polio. I wasn’t only surprised by what happened to Henrietta, but, only to find out what happened to her children, such as Elsie, Joe, and Deborah. I was shocked to read about how Elsie died and where she died.

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867 Words | 4 Pages

HeLa cells were a big impact on scientific research and currently still are, the use of HeLa cells should be promoted because of the good they have done. Henrietta Lacks was an African American southerner, she went about her daily life just like any other woman would but one day she began feeling pain in her lower stomach and could not bare it. After making a trip to the doctors she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, her cancer was treated multiple times with radiation but would not stop worsening. Eventually, the doctors gave Henrietta a “consent” form and then let her pass. Years on Henrietta’s daughter decided that the consent form she signed was not right because her mother did not actually know what was happening and the doctors sold

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663 Words | 3 Pages

“Was It Illegal for Doctors to Take Cells from Henrietta Lacks Without her Consent?” How can you take cells from a human being and treat them as clothes that you’re just selling. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot told the story of the woman behind the famous cell line and the fact that her family did not know about Lacks’ immortal cells until more than 20 years after her death. Some believe it was legal to take Mrs. Lacks cells, while others disagree and say it’s illegal. It was definitely illegal for the doctors and scientist to take Henrietta’s cells without her consent.

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440 Words | 2 Pages

Poverty also led the Lacks 's family to injustice for them and their mother 's cells because they simply couldn 't afford a lawyer. The book says, "So in attempt to get Hopkins to give them what they saw as their cut of the HeLa profits they made handouts about Henrietta Lack 's family being owed their due, and gave them to customers at Lawrence 's store". This illustrates that although Lawrence and Sonny couldn 't afford a lawyer, the next best thing was to spread the word, and also shows how they just had to make do with what they had. Rebecca Skloot shows how poverty was a major problem for the Lacks 's family in, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". Ranging from medical problems to being an easy target to having injustice.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

An essential part of modern society relied on trust, especially the trust of doctors and scientists. People had the right to make an informed decision about their bodies and body parts. People had a right to their body parts, both attached and cell samples collected by doctors. The actions that the medical professions made will continue to affect future generations in both positive and negative ways. In the contemporary biographical novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot used logical opinions to argue about the importance of consent to reveal the lack of morality from those in the medical field which continues to persist today.

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395 Words | 2 Pages

Shirley Jackson's 'the lottery' demonstrates the dangers of traditions because the villagers' actions highlight the harmful consequences of following a tradition without understanding its purpose. The tradition of the village was to sacrifice someone from the village to be able to get good crops the next year. In danger of tradition there traditions were passed down but they where wrong they did it because they saw there mother do it. In the story 'The Lottery' the small village was a village with a very weird tradition.

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276 Words | 2 Pages

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, education plays a substantial role in what occurs throughout the book. Many major events are related to people not understanding what is happening to them. Skloot brings up the topic ’Lack of Education,’ frequently and this affected Henrietta's treatments, and how her family viewed the situation, and how the black community viewed scientist overall. In many occasions lack of education causes a major event to happen, “she didn't write much, and she hadn't studied science in school,”(pg 16) with little education Henrietta had no idea what was wrong with her. Without Henrietta or her family knowing symptoms of certain diseases Henrietta does not go to the hospital till the end.

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