Underneath Gaslighting

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The Movie “Gaslight”

A movie that reveals a man’s secret and unholy desires and probes into the strange emotional depths of one woman’s heart … (from the movie promotions)

In the movie Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman plays a young bride who is being led to think she is going crazy by her husband. The evil man she married is actually after a valuable jewel that belonged to her aunt, a famous opera singer. The lights are gas, and if someone in the house turns on a light, all the lights in the house flicker. This is what Ingrid Bergman keeps seeing when she thinks her husband isn’t in the house. If he isn’t there, who is turning on a light somewhere else in the house? He keeps telling her that she imagined the lights flickering, or didn’t hear footsteps in the attic.

Doubt

His goal is to get his bride to doubt herself. That’s the goal of all gaslighting. “I never did/said/implied that!” - when the opposite is true. It whittles down self-confidence in the target.

Fear

Gaslighting is also meant…