Sometimes, the best warning a parent can give their child is: watch this, watch this movie a hundred times. So it is the case with the 1944 movie Gaslight, a terrifying life lesson wrapped in less than two hours.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
A husband viciously exploits his wife’s sweet naivety, leading her to doubt her own sanity. As a young girl, Paula witnessed the murder of her famous opera singer aunt (and guardian) in their London home. The murder isn’t solved, and Paula is sent to study in Italy, where she falls in love with Gregory. After their wedding, they return to Paula’s London house, inherited from her aunt. Gregory keeps telling Paula she becomes forgetful. While Gregory is away, Paula hears knocking on the walls at night and sees the gas lighting dim (hence the movie’s name). Gregory makes her believe it is only her imagination and that she is too unwell to be in public or receive visitors. As I already spoiled the movie, I won’t reveal the ending but suffice it to say, this movie is a masterclass depicting psychological abuse.
I selected some relevant quotes from Gaslight:
Gregory: You might lose it [a brooch]. You know, you are inclined to lose things.
Paula: I am? I didn’t realize that.
Gregory: Just little things. I’ll put it in your bag for safekeeping. There. Now, you’ll remember where it is.
Paula: Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll remember.
Gregory: I was teasing you, my dear.
Paula doesn’t find her brooch in the purse as Gregory takes it away.
Gregory: Paula, didn’t I tell you? How did you come to lose it?
Paula: I don’t remember opening my bag. I suppose I must have. You did put it in there?
Gregory: Don’t you even remember that?
Paula: Yes, of course I do. But suddenly, I am beginning not to trust my memory at all.
Gregory: Paula, I told you, you’re just tired. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure it doesn’t.
And so the seeds of self-doubt have been planted.
[When a man salutes Paula, amazed by Paula’s resemblance to her aunt]
Paula: I have no idea who he is. He seemed to know me and…
Gregory: Do you usually bow to people you don’t know?
Paula: No. I supposed I’d met him somewhere.
Gregory: Are you telling me the truth?
Paula: Of course. Why should I lie? I don’t know who he is.
Gregory: Yet you smiled at him. Why?
Paula: I tell you, I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know why I did it.
Gregory: Like the other things.
Paula: What other things?
Gregory: Nothing. Only I’ve been noticing, Paula, that… you’ve been forgetful lately.
Paula: Forgetful?
Gregory: Losing things and… Don’t look so worried, Paula. It’s nothing. You get tired and…
Paula: Yes, that’s probably what it is. I get tired.
After Gregory denies visitors to Paula, he manages to bring another piece of devious psychological torture when he tells Paula they will go out:
Paula: How wonderful!
Gregory: And you thought I was being cruel to you.
Paula: No, you’re not cruel.
Gregory: Keeping people away from you, making you a prisoner.
Paula: You’re the kindest man in the world.
Stockholm Syndrome for good measure, as Paula becomes more and more uncertain of her reality and relies heavily on her husband. And, of course, they will not go out.
Gregory addressing the new housemaid:
I don’t want you to bother your mistress about anything, ever. If you have any questions, just come to me. It might seem a little unusual, but your mistress is inclined to be rather highly strung.
The housemaid in dialogue with the cook:
What’s the matter with the mistress? She don’t look ill to me. Is she?
I don’t know. Not as I can see. But the master keeps telling her she is.
Distortion of reality to make Paula appear unstable and unreliable to others.
As these dialogues show, the gaslighting or manipulation is gradual, with subtle tactics to undermine Paula’s self-confidence. A teasing here, some blame-shifting there, isolating her from friends, moving things around the house to sow confusion, escalating into constant criticism and blatant lies.
My dear daughter, I hope you will never meet gaslighting. But if you do, it will start like this: You’re overreacting. I was just teasing. You remember it wrong. I never said that. You’re being paranoid.
On repeat, day after day, until you start to believe them: I am overreacting. I remember it wrong. I am to blame. I am too sensitive. I am helpless.
You begin to second-guess yourself. You find excuses for the gaslighter’s behaviour. You think twice or thrice before starting an innocent conversation. Simple decisions become controversial. As the Mad Hatter says to Alice, you are not the same as you were before. You were much more… much more muchier. You’re losing your muchness.
Aldous Huxley said,
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Indeed, imagine if almost every aspect of your life gets better, but you never have a chance to appreciate it because expectations rise almost as fast as the improving circumstances. With gaslighting, you begin to take for granted that nearly everything about you plunges. As a worm eating at your soul, the poison from someone near can consume you whole.
Don’t stay there. Run for the hills. Seek help from family, friends and good therapists. Learn to distinguish between objective facts and manipulations. Learn to build a more realistic view of your experiences and ignore manipulative practices. Replace “I am to blame” with “I am being manipulated”. You are not alone, and other people will support you. Accept your mistakes but do not accept your distorted thinking patterns. You are not Atlas to carry the pain and blame of the whole world on your shoulders. You are you, and you mean so very much to you.
Further Reading:
Gaslighting doesn’t happen only in personal settings – Medical gaslighting: ‘No man would be asked if they suffer from panic attacks while having a heart attack
Although the gaslighting term was coined by a Victorian-era play adapted into two movies (one in 1940, available to watch here and the one from 1944 I mentioned in the article), this concept is more actual than ever – Merriam-Webster picks its word of the year (2022).
In this age of misinformation – of ‘fake news’, conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deep fakes – gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time,” Merriam-Webster said in a statement on Monday.
“It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” Peter Sokolowski told the US wire service.