The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Situational Irony 1 key example

Key Examples in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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:

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