In these chapters following Esther's terrible depression, we see that Esther is able to rebel a little by breaking the thermometers. She takes satisfaction in being a little mean and somewhat clever, and we are reminded of the earlier scene in the novel when Buddy looks at Esther's broken leg with some sadistic satisfaction. We are also reminded of the time when Hilda was so cruelly satisfied about the Rosenbergs' executions. Esther hates that kind of cruelty, yet her own kindness is more often than not just passivity. And certainly her summer of sickness is an exercise in masochism.
Since Esther's friends are not people whom she can genuinely admire or feel close to, Esther is often in need of intimates — but she has none. After her self-destructive period, her notions of how to be well are laced with actions of clever deviation. In the scene in which Esther tries to drown herself but keeps bobbing back up, she says, "I knew when I was beaten." Here, the implication is that she is beaten by nature, which is forcing her back up to life. Yet it is society — not nature — that has beaten Esther; it has encouraged her cleverness, but cleverness is not genuine intelligence, and Esther has not realized that, as a woman, she does not have to be a passive creature. How, we wonder, can Esther be such a clever dummy?
When she is taken to Dr. Gordon's hospital for an electro-shock treatment, she notices that the people do not look real, that they appear to be mannequins. This is, of course, extremely upsetting. The hospital that is supposed to help people is turning them into zombies. This is darkly ironic because Esther's problems come from being too passive already. She should have just hitchhiked to Chicago — but, instead, she went home, as always, "like a good girl." The complexity of her situation is not understood by her doctors, who also do not understand her illness very well — in medical or in psychological terms, for just as Esther had waited, waited passively, in Dr. Gordon's office, now she is waiting for others to treat her, to cure her. When she wakes up after her pill-taking suicide attempt, she thinks that she is blind. And in a way, Esther is blind because she doesn't know what to do, or which way to turn. Except for the pain of the electroshock treatments, she could easily become a zombie also. She is at the mercy of her caretakers, who do not understand her.
