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Imagery
Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Key Examples in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Chapter 3: Diagnosis and Treatment
Explanation and Analysis—Like All the Others:
After Dr. Wharton removed tissue from Henrietta Lacks without her knowledge or consent, the samples were carried to George Gey’s lab. The transfer itself was routine—something that had happened many times before with other patients’ cells. While Gey remained optimistic, his staff had grown jaded. Every human culture they had ever tried had died quickly, and there was no reason to think this sample would be different. This moment exemplifies dramatic irony, where the audience knows a truth the characters do not:
A resident took the dish with the samples to Gey’s lab, as he’d done many times before. Gey still got excited at moments like this, but everyone else in his lab saw Henrietta’s sample as something tedious — the latest of what felt like countless samples that scientists and lab technicians had been trying and failing to grow for years. They were sure Henrietta’s cells would die just like all the others.
Related Themes:
Chapter 22: “The Fame She So Richly Deserves”
Explanation and Analysis—Pancreatic Cancer:
Rebecca Skloot recounts that not long after a fishing trip, George Gey—pioneer of the immortal HeLa cell line—was diagnosed with one of the most aggressive forms of the very disease he had dedicated his life to studying. At 71, Gey learned he had pancreatic cancer, a terminal condition that quickly ended his life. This passage is a clear example of situational irony: the man who unlocked a key to cancer research by developing methods to culture Henrietta Lacks’s cells falls victim to the same illness he sought to conquer:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Soon after that fishing trip, at the age of seventy-one, Gey learned he had the disease he’d spent his entire life trying to fight. And he had one of its most deadly forms: pancreatic cancer
Related Themes:
