Peter Strople once said, “Legacy is not something one leaves to people, it's something one leaves in people.” Henrietta Lacks’ legacy is her cells and how they helped hundreds of people. Henrieta Lacks is an African American woman who died from cervical cancer and her cancerous cells were taken from her without her consent. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot expresses the central issues of ethics and race through various literary devices. Henrietta’s story highlights the systemic racism and exploitation that has occurred in the medical field. Through various mediums, Henrietta and her story are portrayed accurately for the most part.
The novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot portrays Henrietta Lacks
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Wolfe is extremely successful at illustrating Henrietta correctly when comparing it to the novel. The movie tells almost all if not the most important parts of Henrietta’s story. One thing the film and book have similar is using different techniques to bring to light the central issues of science and ethics. For example, the director uses diegetic sounds in a scene where Deborah is standing in front of the wall, with images of her mother's cells projected on the wall. The peaceful guitar solo sets the scene as peaceful and allows the audience to understand how Deborah may feel. Deborah’s facial expressions and hand movements also allow the audience to feel for her and infer that she must feel like she is hugging her mother. Oprah Winfreys’ acting does a great job of getting the audience to focus on Deborah’s pain, something the book doesn’t do much of. Deborah’s perspective is not understood in the book as well as in the movie. One thing the movie doesn’t do very well is representing the issue of race. Deborah and her family are ignored and mistreated because of their race but in the movie, the social injustice seems to be an afterthought. While in the novel, race being a crucial issue is frequently emphasized. One example is chapter 6, Skloot is having a conversation with Roland Pattillo, trying to gain access to Deborah, when he doubts her knowledge of African Americans in science. Skloot uses descriptive language to show she is well versed in the history of lack of consent and racism in the medical field. She says, “The researchers chose black subjects because they, like many whites at the time, believed black people were “a notoriously syphilis-soaked race.” (Skloot 50) While this conversation is seen in the movie, and there are other scenes where race is seen to be represented, it is barely shown the impact the issue of race has on the Lacks family. Overall, the film and novel are very similar, it’s