Purpose Statements:
1. The purpose of first paragraph is telling the readers that author wants to make a hook at beginning.
2. The purpose of second paragraph is introduce the book has three sections, so author cannot follow a chronological order.
3. The purpose of third paragraph is explaining author write the book with many layers because that can make the book more logical.
Special Plot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black Tabaco farmer whose cells – taken without her knowledge in 1951- became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance… (2009, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot)
When we read the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, we will find the book is different than normal books. Author distributes a long story of Henrietta. Author writes Henrietta’s childhood family, doctor and her immortal cells with many layers instead of following the chronological order for some reasons.
First of all, author wants to make the book interested to readers so she makes a hook at beginning. At first, she writes the situation about Henrietta’s diagnosis. She gives an image that Henrietta went to take exam for check her womb, but we have no idea about that women! So we want to know “Who is that women? How about her life and how about her family? ” It is what author wants! We prefer to know more than we need to read the book deeply so author writes second chapter called “Clover” that introduce the childhood of Henrietta.
In addition, the book has three main sections. Life, Death and Immortality. That means there are something happened in different setting but they are in one of the section. Author need put them together so for whole book the setting is jump around but for each section we still understand what does author wants to talk about.
Finally, author wants to make the book more logical. There are something happened on Henrietta and her family for the social issue at that specific time. The readers will feel confusing without explain, so author introduce some important social condition that cause something happened at that time are normally. We call that “cause and effect”.
In conclusion, author use special plot structure and did not follow a chronological order. What is it that the author wants to convince to the readers through the story. If the author follow a chronological order that will make the book become a little bit boring, of cause it can’t be three main sections. There are some famous book also use the same way, such as Princess Bride, Les Misérables.