The Diary of Anne Frank

The book I have recently started, “The Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank is the actual diary of a thirteen year old girl hiding in an attic from the Nazis during world war two. She describes the living conditions and everything that she hears about what is happening to her friends and family who are not hidden. One of the most common things she talks about while hiding in the “secret annex” is the fights the families have. There is Ms. Van Daan who always is picking a fight with someone or other. And then she talks about herself and how nobody seems to think that she can do anything right. But it is really nobody’s fault for the fights. It can be because of the setting or because of the anxiety of what is happening.

The setting is a major part of the reason why there is so much tension. Because the two families are living in a cramped living environment, a lot of their quarrels have to do with the setting itself. One fight that lasted a few days was over a small work desk that everyone needed to do their work. The setting made it difficult to share a working space with all dwellers. Many of the arguments have happened because of some problem with the setting. For example, the families had to store beans but could not keep them on the main floor so they had an argument about who should take them upstairs. The end result was a million beans on the floor. The setting has a large impact on the characters relationships because it makes them quarrel more often for simple things like beans or a work desk. I know that if I was stuck with the same eight people in an attic I would be angered easily. This makes me realize how hard it must be for them to be nice to each other in this environment. It must be difficult for the families to get along as much as they do which is hardly at all.

In the book, the newcomer who moves in with Anne and her family into the “secret annex” knows a lot about what is going on outside because he has been out there longer. He tells the family all of the horrors of what has been happening at concentration camps and how unfairly people are treated. I think that it is stories like these that add to the fighting between people. The anxiety of knowing that something might happen to them and what is happening to their friends is harsh and it certainly adds to the tension. This makes the families spark their anger at every little thing. I know that I would be very scared knowing that I could be caught and shot at any moment for hiding, I would be very scared and easily frightened. This is what causes some of the fight. Also, because there is hardly anything to do, there is more time for them to think about these things giving more fighting time as well as more time to build up fears. Anxiety and boredom are definitely contributing to the arguments between people in the “secret annex”.

It is obvious by the way that Anne Frank talks about the arguments that they are not what usually happen between her and her family. So, something must be different. I think that the setting itself is a contributing factor because there is hardly room and has caused many specific arguments. Boredom leads to anxiety which leaves residents more vulnerable to becoming angry at one another. There are definitely many more things, though, that cause these fights. But arguments are most often sparked in my life because of these things, so these must be the major causes of arguments in general.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

In the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", the author, Rebecca Skloot, wants readers to know that that Henrietta Lacks was a woman living in the mid- 1900s was taken advantage of when she had cancer and some of her cells were taken without her knowing and used in experiment in labs eventually around the world.The author explains the distribution of her cells over the world and the importance that they have because of how quickly they can grow and can be used to discover vaccines and answers to many scientific questions. On detail that helps Rebecca Skloot prove her point is when she explains how Henrietta's cells helped make a vaccine for polio. Without even knowing it she saved millions of people from diening of polio. Another detail that helps her is when she goes to interview the family who then explain to her how they didn't know about this untill the scientists took their blood. It shows how if Henrietta's closest family didn't know about the usage of her cells, how was she supposed to know? Rebecca Skloot says in the story after she explains that the reporter used fake names, "This is why the name was never mentioned to them." "Them" being her family. She wants readers to realize how terrible this was for Henrietta when she describes in too much detail what was happening inside her body. Skloot wants readers to realize how unfair this was to Henrietta because she had no idea what was happening to her cells.

Rebecca Slkoot hopes that readers will feel bad for Henrietta and think that what happened to her was unfair. She makes us feel that the doctors and scientists had no right to take her cells without her approval. They didn't even tell her in her life time what was happening and there was no way for her to figure out when she was stuck in the hospital most of the time. The story talks about how her family didn't even find out untill twenty years after it became a multimillion-dollar industry. This tells the reader that they didn't even try to tell her or her family, and this is not fair. She would most likely be happy that her cells were doing so much good to the world, so why didn't they tell her? The author clearly thinks that this is unfair to Henrietta and her family when she has many pages dedicated to the argument over whether informed consent is needed. She says that she asked one of Henrietta's doctors whether they had tried to get informed consent and he said "No. We never gave consent form because you just go

I think that so far, this book is really great and interesting. I had no idea that this sort of thing happened, and before I read this book, I didn't know who Henrietta Lacks was. I feel really bad that that this happens to people and I wonder if this happens to anyone else, and if it does, than those people don't even get a good story to tell; plus they were lied to. It seems unfair, even if this helped the scientific world a lot. I am very interested in cell biology so I am learning a lot about cells that I want to know, while reading a really well written book. The science in the book is amazing. It explains how vaccines are injected into cells and that they can be split in half.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 3

This week I had a hard time finding a book I would like, so I have to write about “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” for one more week. The book is a true story about Henrietta Lacks whose cells were taken from her when she was diagnosed with cancer. The only thing wrong was that the doctors never told her or her family that they were using her cells. The articles in the newspapers used false names, anything to prevent her from knowing about it. But these cells cured many diseases including polio. But the book also tells the story of her family’s life after she is in the hospital. But not only does it follow them, and the author gathering the information, the book also tells the scientific story of her cell. In science class, the other week, we had a class debate about whether it was fair to test on animals for research. This relates to the story in the way that Henrietta was used for research and had no opinion as well as many other people including her family. I think that it is wrong not to tell them, but it is right to use them as long as it causes no harm.

The book shows a scene where the author, Rebecca Skloot, is at the house of Henrietta’s direct family to gather information for the book. She describes in detail everything she had heard and seen, which gives the reader a really good understanding of what the family is like. They get into this whole argument about how hospitals liked to use African Americans for testing because in those days, segregation was just beginning to wear off. They talk about how Johns Hopkins, the medical school and hospital where Henrietta was kept, liked to take African Americans off of the street to test on them and often killed them. One striking thing that was said was that sometimes they would perform dissections on these people when they were alive so they could study the body in the action. They would not use anesthesia.

I completely agree with Henrietta’s family in that the way that the hospitals used African Americans for research was unfair. I feel like that if they had gotten informed consent on the investigations from the people than it would be alright. But the scientist would inject the live cancer cells from Henrietta into people without them knowing to test whether they affected them. This made people have cancer. First of all, they had no idea what they were being injected with. It’s not like the doctors didn’t tell them, they lied about what they were doing which makes me even more mad. Second of all, it severly harmed many of them and sometimes killed them. I just cannot believe that people would do something like this. And, to go on top of that, the doctors were making sure the cells were not harmful so they could protect themselves while studying the cells. That is really selfish.

I love the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” a lot, but some things that have nothing to do with the story make me very unhappy. I think that, although there are laws about this nowadays, I think it is important now to protect the rights of animals. If they could talk, and you asked them if they want to put cream in their eyes that would make them blind but make people have shiny skin, they would say “no”. But they cannot talk so they cannot tell you that they don’t want this. But is that a good reason to test on them?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 2

I am still reading “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot. It is a true story about Henrietta Lacks whose cells were taken from her when she developed cancer. These cells, unlike any others, could grow nonstop and therefore are used in numerous experiments, one of which cured polio. The book follows Henrietta’s family and Rebecca Skloot as she tries to gather information from the family. Throughout the story, there are many perspectives. The most common ones are Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta’s family, and the doctors and scientists. But one of the most important perspectives is missing: the people.

They story explains the press and how many articles were published about the HeLa cells(Henrietta’s cells), and that these are all over the world, but the book never explains what the ordinary day people thought about what was happening. Were the people upset, or did they just not care? The story excludes these people because since the Lacks family didn’t know it was Henrietta, the people most likely would have thought nothing of it, except for the fact that her cells were curing many diseases. In this large area, I also think that the people who were tested with the cells have no perspective in the book. They got cancer in their body without knowing as a test. This is what happened to Henrietta and I’m sure they were not happy, but how should I know if the book leaves them out?

I also noticed that in the book there is a lot of racism, and this somewhat corresponds to perspective. Within just the Lacks family, there are light skinned people and African Americans, and these people rarely mix. The perspective of the African Americans is actually shown much more in the story because they are Henrietta’s direct family. I think that even though this is exactly opposite of what someone might expect given the time period, it show the segregation that there is, but without giving any color an advantage. It still shows the separation but it is kindly written to not exclude African Americans. The family cared a lot about the whole cell thing, but how did whites feel? Were they upset or did they just not care because of skin color?

In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, I realized that racism does not have to be shown by excluding the victims, African Americans. It can be shown in many ways, and the less obvious it is, the more realistic it is; because the obvious is not what happens every single time. The perspective that is missing explains a lot about what the author is trying to tell the reader.