Tendencies

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Esther tries to kill herself three times in the first chapter of the reading, once by hanging (rope falls from where she hangs it), once by drowning (she stops swimming to the rock and tries diving, then gives up), and once by OD of sleeping pills (found and wakes up in asylum).  She tries to do this because she feels that none understand her, from the snippy ladies in maternity that gripe about their dead flowers not being in their vases where they're supposed to be, to her mother, who is still under the delusion of her daughter "pretending" to be insane out of feelings of grandeur or something.  After suicide attempt #3, she is found while comatose and put into a hospital.  The entire staff is stymied as to what Esther's problem is, and ends up giving her a ball of mercury to play with.  Never mind how many occupational hazards there are to playing w/ mercury, namely poisoning if it gets anywhere inside your body, they still give it to her.  While this can possibly be ascribed to the fact that science marches on (the same reason that shock treatments aren't handed out to insane people like placebos nowadays), the fact that mercury thermometers are normally encased in glass (instead of, for example, an open container) should be a bit of a tip-off that Mercury isn't as safe as it seems.