Lead in Literature

"The Castle" (Australian Movie, 1996)

[Earlier scene] Council Evaluator: "Large Kennel!"

Mr Kerrigan (home owner): Well originally it was a cubby house when the kids were growing up. I was thinking of turning it into a granny flat, but the Council said "no".

Evaluator : Oh.

Mr Kerrigan: now here back – [it’s] all landfill. Not allowed to build there.

Evaluator: Has the soil been tested?

Mr Kerrigan: Oh yeah – nothing too serious in there. What do you know about lead? {END OF SCENE}

[Later scene] Narrator (Wayne Kerrigan): …Dennis [Denuto – the local lawyer] became very well known after the ["a man’s home is his castle"] case, and people came from everywhere to hire him. He won a very big case - a class action against people who put lead in the landfill 15 years ago – I think Mr Hamill [the retired QC] helped him there too….

"Turning Lead into Gold" (p 19 from the book "The Resilient Spirit", by Polly Young-Eisendrath, published by Allen and Unwin, 1996)

Every author from Sigmund Freud to Erik Erikson, and then later from John Bowlby to Daniel Stern, stressed the crucial importance of happy, secure attachments in childhood. It is this grounding, they argued, that leads to the kind of confident autonomy that produces success in adulthood.

One prominent exception to this prevailing view was that of Carl Jung. He spoke of the theme of transformation, of developing through difficulty into greater integration, and used the alchemical metaphor of transforming lead into gold.