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Henrietta Lacks Final Project: Essay

Frame Narrative Analysis

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot was written as a frame narrative. A frame narrative is “a secondary story or stories embedded in the main story” (Dictionary.com). Skloot transitions from the “present”, which is what she personally went through, and the past, including Henrietta’s story along with Deborah’s and some others. Other examples of stories with frame narratives include “The Notebook”, “Titanic”, “The Great Gatsby” and “Forrest Gump”. Frame narratives have different effects on the story being told. They add a sense of foreshadowing, but still unknowing of how things are going to happen; they add a new, unique perspective with more depth; they make you think a little more, making you more intrigued; and, lastly, they show how two completely different stories can come together and intertwine into one.

“The Notebook” is a story about an elderly man named Duke telling a fellow patient at a nursing home a story. It’s a story about Noah and Allie and their summer love. It is later known that Duke’s fellow patient is Allie, who has Alzheimer’s, and Duke is actually Noah. This story sort of gives hints about there being a connection between Duke telling the story and the story that is being told. The viewer realizes this, but does not know for sure how this will come to light in the movie and are and is still unknowing of what is to come in the story. In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, the Lacks family refuses to speak to Rebecca Skloot for some time before they actually do. The fact that Skloot had already told part of Henrietta’s story shows that she did in fact speak with them. The only question the reader would have is what happened to convince the Lacks family to speak to Skloot. In the prologue of the book, Skloot says “The Lacks challenged everything I thought I knew about faith, science, journalism, and race”. This initially shows the reader that she did...