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An interplay between henrietta lacks, fun home, and the 9/11 graphic report: a culmination (of Sorts) of thoughts

I chose to write on my favorite three books of the class as a resolution and final thought of the class. This paper explains where my thoughts are now of the genres non-fiction and fiction and a glimpse to where I am headed in that thought process.

Rebecca Skloot's The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

This book by rebecca skloot is an exposé of the controversies surrounded by the cancer cells from henrietta lacks. henrietta lacks was a poor african american woman whose cells were used to develop countless medicines and remedies that are still in use today. her cells were the first to survive outside of the human body long term. those same cells are still being used in experiments today. the problem surrounding her cells is that of tissue rights. henrietta lacks and her family had no knowledge that her cells were being experimented on and cloned for popular scientific use. the jim crow era, the time in which her cells were taken, had allowed the doctors to take henrietta cells and do what they wanted to with them because she was a poor, black woman. during that time, she was lucky to be getting free treatment for her cancer because most black people could not afford health care or were not allowed adequate health care.

to find more information about henrietta and her family, rebecca skloot travels to meet henrietta's family and spends time with them over a few years conducting interviews and gathering information to compile in her book. from these interviews, she created a dialogue between characters in this book. the dialogue and setting she created seemed to have a fictional style to it, which left me, and other students in my class, uneasy. The main reason why i felt uneasy was becaue of my perceptions of the genre in which the immortal life of henrietta lacks is: Literary journalism (non-fiction).

i did not expect non-fiction to have the elements that the immortal life of henrietta lacks had: dialogue, settings, etc. because of that, many of my peers felt that the book lost credibility and i too believe that the book lost some of it's "realness" in that respect. The fictional elements were different from the traditional non-fiction novels that i have read.

Alison Bechdel's

Fun Home

Fun home is a graphic memoir written by alison bechdel. In this memoir, alison discusses her relationship with her father, her experience realizing her homosexuality, and the suprise of her father's bisexuality.

the debate that surrounds this book is: should bechdel tell her father's story? In this book, she writes in much detail about her father's struggle between keeping his family and being freely homosexual. her father died before she wrote this book, which leaves the questions of whether she should write about his story though he can not give permission of its use.

[sidenote: my opinion is that she has the right to tell her father's story because his story impacted her life and became part of her story. In order for her to properly tell her story, she had to tell her father's story or it would have been incomplete. she would not have been "honest" with her readers if she left out her father.]

Another issue that surrounds this graphic novel is the use of drawings. fun home is categorized as non-fiction writing yet the drawings in the book, supposedly mimicking actual photos, seem very fictional.

How Does the immortal life of henrietta lacks interact with Fun Home?

something that resonates with me in both of these books is the idea of genre categorization. In both fun home and the immortal life of henrietta lacks, these non-fiction works have fictional elements to them : dialogue, setting, drawings, etc. this same idea of proper categorization I wrote about in my second paper: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/8598 .

In that paper I talked about removing genre from the book and letting readers decide what they feel would be the best to categorize the novel after they have read it. but, after careful consideration and a brief discussion with a few of my classmates, I have started to not look at the Genre as the problem, but look at the perception of genre as something that may be a problem when reading works. I had looked at non-fiction as the truth and fiction as the lie. after taking a course on non-fiction, i was thinking about how genre is useless and we should throw out the categories in which we place novels. now, I am starting to question whether we should leave those genres and start reconstructing our ideas of genre, an idea that mimicks my second paper on reconstructing the ideas of documentary discusses: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/8481 .

Both the immortal life of henrietta lacks and fun home have an element of "seeking truth". rebecca skloot in the immortal life seeks to find the "realest" story of HeLA cells and the woman behind it. bechdel tells the "realest" story of her relationship with her father and the "best" account of her father's struggle with his sexuality. I think both writers are related in the fact that the information they presented in their books is limited to the knowledge of secondary sources. within that, i find that in both of these novels, there can be no "ABsolute" truth, if there is such a thing. what i do find that both of these books do well is engage readers and put forth the stories that are applicable to the lives of many of the readers. for instance, fun home, though an adult graphic novel, has the potential through its genre and its packaging to have a younger and older audience. the stories of the father-daughter relationship can relate to many readers. the immortal life of henrietta lacks contains information not only limited to scientific knowledge, but also too racial issues, family dynamics, rights issues, and other themes that can reach an audience not limited to the genre in which it was categorized.

stemming from that idea, i feel that fun home and the immortal life of henrietta lacks are different in how they relate to their genres. fun home's genre seems to help build its audience, while the immortal life of henrietta lacks' genre seems to limit its audience. the graphic novel genre is enjoyed by many different age groups, yet literary journalism does not necessarily reach different age groups, etc.

the 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation

The 9/11 report: a graphic adaptation is a "summary" of the official 9/11 commission final report. It follows the events of 9/11: the specific time of impact and who was involved in the 9/11 attacks. It also criticizes government officials who did not take prohibitive action towards threats against the U.S. This report caricaturizes all events and people involved in the 9/11 attacks.

the problem that i saw with this graphic novel is the lack of sufficient background information on why the 9/11 attacks happened and how the u.s. played a role in the attacks.

supposedly, the official report analyzes in depth the background of the people involved and the reasons to why the 9/11 attacks happened, but this summary did not include that part. I understand that the graphic novel is a summary, but the editors of the novel chose to summarize select parts that could have been enhanced by background knowledge.

The main problem with the lack of background summary is that people who read the graphic novel may not necessarily read the official report. the graphic novel gives them a perception of the events that is flawed because readers have no supplemental knowledge. the preface of the novel states that its intention is to reach an audience that would not otherwise read the official report, which could present a problem because all of the information is not given. this will leave the readers with opinions that are made solely on what they have read from the graphic novel.

How do fun home and the 9/11 report communicate with each other?

Both fun home and the 9/11 graphic report are graphic novels. the use of imagery is very similar in the way in which they are styled. Both Novels draw pictures of what the writing says to enhance the reader's conception of the writer's perception of what the words mean.

though i have argued that the reader is the most important in the perception of reading, i feel that graphic novels have an edge, unlike normal novels, in shaping how the reader perceives a text. the images both fun home and the 9/11 graphic adaptation use are a prime example of this. they use the words to describe what is happening in the novel to the reader, but the pictures show what is happening to the reader, sometimes leaving more or less questions about the intention of the novel.

How does the immortal life of henrietta lacks relate to the 9/11 report?

the immediate connection i made between henrietta lacks and the 9/11 graphic report is the issue of background information.

: An issue that came up in class was the the 9/11 graphic report did not provide enough background information, while the immortal life of henrietta lacks provided too much information to its readers that obstructed the science from the writing.

I also see a connection between the authors' intentions for creating both of the books. skloot wrote her novel on henrietta to expose the truths behind the woman of the hela cells that saved the lives of many. jacobson and colon illustrated the 9/11 report to reach an audience who otherwise would not read the 9/11 commission report and inform them of the events that shaped our world today.

I have thoroughly enjoyed your class and I loved working with this Prezi. Hopefully you will implement this tool in your future classes. I am glad to be an experiment. :)

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