The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Blog 3

Ephraim Morado 

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the issue of authorship always comes to focus. An author is usually a writer who tells a story through books, journals, and articles. The author has the authority to what he/she wants to put in his/her article. So basically they have the authority on how they want to tell the story even if it will only be beneficial to them. This is one of many issues of the book because Skloot, a white person, is telling the story of a Henrietta Lacks, a black individual. In the book Skloot is giving little bits and pieces of Henrietta’s life but it seems that their lives are completely different from each other. Although Skloot is telling the story of Henrietta, I believe that the ethnic background of the author is not really significant. Also, a more important subject when it comes to authorship is the author’s point of view.

                When one reads this book they can tell that Rebecca Skloot searched far and wide with a sheer determination to tell Henrietta’s story. Unfortunately, I think her style of writing is not very credible because she is in control of how to tell the story of another person’s life. A person who tries to write a story of someone else’s life would be more reliable only if the author has a direct connection with them. In Rebecca Skloot’s case it seems that rather than having a connection in the first place, she is trying to make the connection with the Lacks family. For instance, if one was to compare this with “The Help”, a book written by Kathryn Stockett, one can see how Stockett is connected to the African American community. She was able to expierience and witness how oppressed “The Help” was during that time. Also, her motivation of writing the book was very different compared to Skloot. Stockett wanted the voices of the underprivileged black women’s voices to be heard. On the other hand, Skloot’s motivation is to find more information about the HeLa cells that she was introduced to in one of her science classes. So the big difference between these two books is the point of view that the authors provide. Stockett’s story intersects with “The Help”, but Skloot’s story does not.        

                Furthermore, I think the author’s connection with the subject matter is an extremely important element in term of point of view. Although the book is written like a novel in addition to it being very well paced and well written, her style of writing about Henrietta’s life is also very inconsistent. Mainly because when I was reading the book I felt as if I was reading three different stories. One is the story of Henrietta, two is the fight against cancer, and finally Skloot’s journey of obtaining information about Henrietta. I feel like we are given the most minimal amount of information about Henrietta Lacks, because all her stories come from a secondary source. I mean if someone compared this book with Frederick Douglas’ perspective and style of the writer is extremely different. I feel like in the story of Frederick Douglas we were able to experience firsthand on how being an African American man in a highly oppressive society changed him as a person. Basically when a one reads Frederick Douglas they are able to rely on every piece of information given by the book because it was given by a primary source.

                In every story, the conqueror always tells the tale and the conquered is left without a voice. Although Rebecca is telling the story from her perspective I feel like it was the right thing to do, and the only way people in today’s society can learn about the story behind the HeLa cells. However, the aftermath of this book is highly controversial because as Rebecca Skloot flourished the Lacks family remained in their lower class status. Unfortunately, that’s just how the world works today, if Rebecca Skloot did not do this someone else would receive credit and nothing would have ever changed. The only way that the Lacks family would achieve the goal of receiving credit for their Henrietta’s life story is if they wrote it themselves. Sadly, they were not given the same privileges that Skloot received in her life, so they were not able to tell Henrietta’s story.