Henrietta Lacks seemed to be a tiny person with a gale-force personality which could never be minimized or ignored, even in death. She was a spiritual presence even while alive, and after her death, she only got better at spreading her influence. Here are my answers to some questions from the official Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks website, per Mr. Maltman:
Who was Alexis Carrel? Contrast his approach to science and tissue culture with George Gey’s.
Alexis Carrel was a French researcher who had cultured a chicken heart, which he thought would be immortal (like HeLa), but which eventually died (Skloot, 58, 61). He was also a man who believed that some people are born with more or less intrinsic worth than others--he wanted to use cell culture and genetic research to facilitate the creation of a master-race-type genealogical line, and he devoted a lot of his research to finding out how he could do that (Skloot, 59, 60, 61). Scary, weird, and plain evil. Gey, on the other hand, was thinking of the benefit to society generally when he took the cells from Henrietta Lacks, according to Skloot. He didn't want to create an Ubermensch; he just wanted to know what would happen if he ever got a culture to grow and divide indefinitely. He also seemed not to be motivated by potential incomre from his discovery, giving away vials fof HeLa to his colleagues, and hoping that they'd do research with them and give back to the scientific community at large with them.
Cootie seems to know and understand a little bit about HeLa cells, but he believes that Henrietta’s spirit is still present in her cells. What does Cootie think about the reason that HeLa cells were used to develop a polio vaccine? Where does Cootie think Henrietta’s cancer came from?
Cootie seems to think Henrietta saw his suffering as a result of his infection with Polio, and that she intended her cells to be used to help develop the vaccine because of her empathy toward him and her general kindness and good intent toward others (Skloot, 81). He intimated that he thought her cancer was a result of a bad spirit wishing ill on Henrietta, or that it might have been created in her by the doctors at Hopkins (Skloot, 82). According to Skloot, the family and the general population of the primarily-black communities in the South from the time of Henrietta Lacks still believed in Voodoo, and they held the belief that illness could come from being cursed just as much as it could from being exposed to pathogens.
Describe the progression of Henrietta’s cancer in the eight months between her diagnosis and her death. What was Henrietta’s final request? What does this request tell you about her?
Henrietta's body became riddled with tumors, and her major organs were losing function quickly; she was unable to eliminate, and developed toxemia as a result; she had to have clean blood pumped into her to keep her from being completely poisoned by her own metabolic wastes, and eventually she had made such a dent in Hopkins's blood supplies that they stopped her transfusions (Skloot, 83). By the time she died, she suffered from extreme cachexia, and by the end, she was put on only palliative care by order of a doctor at Hopkins (Skloot, 84, 85). Her final request was for Day to care for her children, especially infant Deborah, and to protect them from any harm (Skloot, 85, 86). Her request reveals her to be a very tender, selfless woman, who even in the throes of excruciating pain and near-madness, wanted to ensure her children's welfare, and chose to charge her husband with their care and security. She must have been very wise for her few years, and possessed of a very strong maternal instinct, because the children seemed to be her only focus; she never asked for anything for herself. All she cared about was the fate of her children. She was noble and selfless and stouthearted, and she couldn't leave the earth without the assurance that her children would not suffer. (Unfortunately, Ethel sort of thumbed her nose at Henrietta's request, and abused and neglected the children for years after Henrietta died).
What happened when the family started to bury Henrietta’s body? Henrietta’s cousin says that Henrietta “was tryin’ to tell us somethin’ with that storm.” What do you think she could have been trying to say?
"As Cliff and Fred lowered Henrietta's coffin into her grave and began coveringit with handfuls of dirt, the sky turned black as strap molasses. The rain fell thick and fast. Then came long rumbling thunder, screams from babies, and a blast of wind so strong it tore the metal roof off the barn below the cemetary and sent it flying through the air above Henrietta's grave, its lonf metal slopes flapping like the wings of a giant silver bird. The wind caused fires that burned tobacco fields. It ripped trees from the ground, blew power lines out for miles, and tore one Lacks cousin's wooden cabin clear out of the ground, threw him from the living room into his garden, then landed on top of him, killing him instantly (Skloot, 92). Henrietta must have been trying to say she wasn't done yet--that a part of her still lived and needed to be acknowledged--maybe symbolized by the metal roof--behaving like a living thing, but really only a part of the whole, and unnatural, frightening. I think she was trying to tell people that her death hadn't been peaceful, that she had been in abject agony for a long time before she was called to her Maker, and that she wouldn't let that be for nothing--no one could forget her. No one could make her anonymous. No one in their right mind should underestimate her, either.
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