Before it was a verb, “gaslight” was a noun. A lamp. Then there was a play, Angel Street, in 1938, and then a film, Gaslight, in 1940, and then a second film in 1944 featuring an iconic, disheveled, unwinding performance from Ingrid Bergman.
A woman’s sanity is undercut by her conniving husband, who misplaces objects in an attempt to send her to an asylum. Ultimately, her husband’s plan is revealed: He had murdered her aunt when his wife was a child and had forced their whirlwind romance years later in order to return to the house so he could locate some missing jewels. Nightly, he ventures into their attic, unbeknownst to her, to search for them. The eponymous gaslights are one of the many reasons the heroine believes herself to be truly going mad — they dim as if the gas has been turned on elsewhere in the house, even when no one has seemingly done so.
Bergman’s Paula is in a terrible, double-edged tumble: As she becomes convinced that she is forgetful, fragile, then mad, her instability increases. Psychological violence unmakes everything she is: She is radiant, then hysterical, then utterly haunted, and by the end is a mere husk, floating around her opulent London residence like a specter.
Years later, the noun was verbed. “Gaslight” had a new definition: a form of psychological abuse in which the perpetrator causes the victim to doubt their own sanity. It was, for a while, a niche expression, one you’d…
