The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Literary Elements

Scientific nonfiction, Medical journalism

The book shifts between different time periods in the twentieth century, including the present day.

The book flips back and forth between Skloot’s first-person point of view and her as a third person omniscient narrator.

The book is written in a magazine-like style accessible to readers of a variety of backgrounds.

There are several protagonists. First is Henrietta Lacks, the titular character whose cells have saved millions of lives around the world. There is also Rebecca Skloot herself, who pieces together Henrietta’s untold story and tells it to the world in the form of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The final protagonist is Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s youngest and most stable child. Now a middle-aged woman, Deborah joins Skloot on her quest to uncover the hidden truths of Henrietta’s life. While there is no central antagonistic figure, there are several antagonistic forces at work, including racism, sexism, medical malpractice, etc.

The major conflict of the book is Skloot and Deborah’s struggle to uncover the truth about Henrietta’s final months, the revolutionary cell line that was created from Henrietta’s cells, and Henrietta’s legacy. The book also vividly depicts the injustice of the predominantly white medical system toward impoverished Black patients through the 20th century.

The climax of the book occurs when Deborah, Zakariyya, and Skloot visit Christoph Lengauer’s lab and see Henrietta’s cells for the first time. This moment is the culmination of a lifetime worth of questions on Deborah and Zakariyya’s part, and decades of research on Skloot’s.

“I couldn’t have imagined it then, but that phone call would mark the beginning of a decade-long adventure through scientific laboratories, hospitals, and mental institutions, with a cast of characters that would include Nobel laureates, grocery store clerks, convicted felons, and a professional con artist” (Pg. 22).

This quote, at the beginning of the book, describes the wild journey that Rebecca will undertake to unearth the truth behind the HeLa cells.

“Henrietta died at 12:15 a.m. on October 4, 1951.” (p. 138)

This stark, simple line, relaying the time and date of Henrietta's death, understates the enormous impact of her death on both the world of science and her immediate family. Though the HeLa line will continue, Henrietta Lacks the woman, sister, and mother has died.

On page 338, Gary (a cousin of Deborah and a lay preacher) tells Deborah that people only have to believe in Jesus and they will receive immortal life. He believes that this is what has happened to Henrietta. This is a reference to John 11:25 - "Jesus said to her: 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies."

See section titled “Imagery.”

“Another scientist calculated that if you could lay all HeLa cells ever grown end-to-end, they’d wrap around the Earth at least three times, spanning more than 350 million feet. In her prime, Henrietta herself stood only a bit over five feet tall” (pg. 14).

This statement is paradoxical because though Henrietta herself was a small woman, her cells (part of her body) have grown to massive proportions.

One tragic example of parallelism in the text is the early deaths of both Henrietta and her mother. Both women die young and leave behind children who desperately seek to understand their mother's legacy.

Henrietta's cells are frequently discussed as though they share Henrietta's personality and memories, which makes this an example of synecdoche (a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa).

HeLa cells are often personified, with people speaking about them as though they share Henrietta's personality and memories. For example, on page 130, Cootie says "You know, they said if we could get all the pieces of her together, she’d weigh over eight hundred pounds now,” he told me. “And Henrietta never was a big girl.”