Preview

Henrietta Lacks Ethos

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
235 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Henrietta Lacks Ethos
Those who face financial hardship deal with many obstacles in their life. Putting food on the table, paying bills, and receiving the basic necessities of life becomes difficult with little money. But other disadvantages not often thought of, such as one’s ability to make choices regarding their well-being, also negatively affect individuals and their families. In the 20th century scientific novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot reveals through the rhetorical device of pathos how poverty leads to a lack of education that causes people to make poor decisions about their health. Poverty makes education nearly impossible, or at least difficult to have. In the life of Henrietta Lacks, she must overcome certain barriers created

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Indeed Henrietta Lacks’ life is immortal. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman of the 1950’s. She suffered from cervical cancer and eventually passed away at age 31. Because of her gender and race, she was treated unfairly and unable to receive proper treatment for cancer. A doctor by the name of Howard Jones was responsible for Henrietta’s diagnosis. As he examined the tumor in her cervix, he discovered it’s unusual size and color. Henrietta was then scheduled for treatment. The surgeon on duty was responsible for her treatment. His name was Lawrence Wharton. Because of Richard TeLinde’s theory, for research purposes, Wharton helped himself to a few samples of her cervix without the consent of Henrietta Lacks or her family. He then sent the tissues to a specialist by the name of George Gey. George Gey and his wife Margaret had been studying and growing cell cultures for years. With that being said, Gey and his wife grew Henrietta’s samples in a test tube in a lab at Johns Hopkins hospital. He eventually realized that these cells were not normal. They were immortal. And even now, fives decades after her death, HeLa cells are still being used for scientific research.…

    • 2373 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book with such an intriguing story that it could be mistaken for a work of fiction. Rebecca Skloot showcased her ability to entertain and inform readers with her literary work, telling of a black woman’s scientific subjugation in and throughout the 21st century. The opportunity to read and analyze “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” proved to be a valuable assignment in English 102.…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The scientific enterprise is all about failure; I mean, you learn so much from failure. And you learn almost nothing from success.” This scientist is stating that one cannot gain any knowledge without failing. This is not true. Once one obtains success one now knows exactly what to do to achieve success, thus opening doors and further experiences for them. The novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, due to the success of tissue culture researcher Dr. George Gey can further dispute this quote. His success in tissue culture led to further discoveries, and became one of the most important breakthroughs in modern medicine. The world was able to learn from his success.…

    • 3179 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” the ethical issue of the hospital taking Henrietta Lack’s cells seems be a very major deal and plays an important role throughout the entire book.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Rebecca Skloot’s novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks many ethical questions are raised regarding the practices used to collect and distribute Henrietta’s cells. These practices led to emotional challenges faced by each of Henrietta’s family members and close friends. These ethical issues combined with the struggles faced such as poverty, trust and the lack of education by the Lacks’ family contribute to the overall theme of the novel.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Doris Lessing’s On Not Winning the Nobel Prize (2007) and Margaret Atwood’s Spotty-Handed Villainesses (1994) are both worthy speeches because they evoke a personal response in their intended audience and offer solutions to complex global issues. These issues are complex because they do not have a clear answer and hence, remains a controversial topic and reverberates across time. Therefore, the solutions offered by these speeches also resonates beyond the contextual audience and holds value for the modern responder. Lessing spoke to the general public, through the Nobel lectures, to discuss the issue of world poverty. She focused her speech on the relationship between education and poverty and as such, conveyed education as the means to escape poverty. Atwood’s oration was delivered to a well-read audience and draws attention to gender inequality by examining the unfair representation of women in literature.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Henrietta Lacks

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In her novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot addresses the many variations of ethics by telling the readers about the life of a poor African American Southern tobacco worker living in a time where racism was apparent. In 1951, Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer when she was 30 and reseachers had taken her cells without her permission. The major concern that arises in the novel in my opinion is the lack of informed consent and knowledge given to Henrietta before and her family afterwards. Regardless of race, gender, or socio-economic status, doctors and researchers have a moral obligation to inform their patients thoroughly, provide them with side-effects that may occur, and to communicate properly with the family in case of death. While these and some other issues are merely portrayls, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks provides a narrative field within which these issues can be observed by reflecting on the experiences of many different individuals.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henrietta Lacks

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Racism is immortal just like Henrietta’s cells it will always be around. People would do anything to be the first to discover something. At the end of the day it’s all about the money. The Mississippi appendectomies and the Tuskegee experiments were similar in the way that the government forced treatment upon minorities without consent. Henrietta’s case was different than Mississippi and Tuskegee because the doctor in Johns Hopkins didn’t experiment on her actual body but on her cells without consent. Henrietta’s case the Tuskegee experiments and the Mississippi Appendectomies are all different cases in different locations but serve the same purpose which is to take advantage of poor and uneducated minorities to further medical research.…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tuskegee/Henrietta Lacks

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Tuskegee Institute would test Syphilis on 600 African Americans, 399 would have Syphilis and 201 didn’t have Syphilis. They volunteered to do these tests so it’s not like they picked them randomly. This caused a lot of problems as soon as it became known to the public. Once people found out that they couldn’t use the vaccine to cure their Syphilis everyone got involved. When their families found out they started to wonder if they had it or if their children had it as well. I think the connection between Tuskegee and Henrietta Lacks are very obvious to the situation. I will explain why I think they compare to each other in this essay.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reading “As a Weapon in The Hands of The Restless Poor” one can feel motivated to help those in need. Earl Shorris appeals to emotion when he talks about creating a program to start to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. He starts out the story to say he is writing a book which makes him an author which is an example of ethos because he seems reliable. Shorris then states that the poor have been “Cheated” which is substantially true because the rich were given the opportunity to succeed more as someone who is poor and cannot even afford to feed themselves. In order to help the less fortunate out he has to create a program to help the poor succeed. After a Rhetorical analysis of “As a Weapon in The Hands of The Restless Poor” by Earl Shorris one can conclude that most people take for granted even the little things in life, if one were to open their eyes and see there are many people who do not have a dollar to their name, and we have so much that we tend to lose focus on helping the less fortunate succeed in the world we live in today.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He who knows poverty, knows every trick and tool of the trade. It’s up to him to make his poverty a boon or bane. It is a privilege but at the same time it is a curse that has affected a great amount of people. Poverty is shown as the main reason why delinquency is increasing by day. It can be shown that poor people are intimidated by rich people…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Growing Up In Poverty

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages

    It can be debated that financial prominence is the most important aspect of a person's place in society, more so than race, gender, or religion. This paper reconnoiters the effects of growing up in poverty and the economic, social, and psychological effects of being raised in such an environment. In today’s world, the word poverty is well known throughout most societies. Poverty may have the definition of anyone who lives pay check to pay check. Or for some poverty may be as extreme as one who lives underneath any shelter they can find with no belongings. John Kenneth Galbraith’s definition of poverty is when an individual’s income, even if adequate for survival, falls behind that of the community’s standard. Poverty may also be defined as…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People may see if they are poor, but get a living more advanced than the poverty threshold. Education dramas a part in the extension of the poverty series because the education opportunity is fewer for the poor compare to other classes. In the poverty cycle, education opportunity through scholarships can help by creating opportunities to accomplish an education. Higher education allows a person to have improved qualifications to get a better paying job and helps the poor get rid of poverty and into advanced social roles. It is at a micro level, when opportunities are inefficiently offered to the poor people. A micro level is through several beliefs of poverty and ethics that people with poverty set and hold.…

    • 1104 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henrietta Lacks Quotes

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment.” (29)…

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This article discusses a book written by Charles Karelis titled “The persistence of Poverty” in which the author tries to convey to the reader what it feels like to be poor using the analogy of one’s reaction to a single bee sting as compared to having received many bee stings. The author considers that by having many bee stings the individual would not see the benefit in having only one sting relieved, when he still has several more causing pain. In addition, that being poor only results in being poorer and once one has reached such a degree of poverty one may stop trying to find a way out of it.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays