The Mask of Sanity

by Hervey Cleckley

  Excellent reports on Anna came for several months from the distant school. She was doing well in her studies and already she had won a place on the swimming team. She seemed also to have found herself almost at once in the warm affection of teachers and students. One teacher, in a letter to her mother, spoke of Anna’s “unusual promise in English” and of her “surprising maturity of outlook.” Anna’s own letters, though few, were warm with expressions of devotion that seemed to follow the inimitable idiom of sincerity.

  In these letters she sometimes mentioned her conviction that she knew of no way to express her gratitude except to show by her own conduct that she did deserve the trust her mother and father had shown in her and the support of their love and understanding. No happiness could mean more than that she would find in making them feel they could be proud of her again.

  Such letters were building up in these parents an encouragement they sorely needed and offering (as an anodyne for their anguish and humiliation) increasing hope that as parents they had not, perhaps, failed their daughter utterly. Meanwhile, reports began to come from the school which seriously disquieted them.

  Anna had apparently broken a number of rules, most of them involving minor issues, it is true. She had twice been caught smoking with several other girls; she had four times stayed out considerably beyond hours; she had cut several classes; she had spoken disrespectfully to a teacher. But, after all, such misdemeanors often indicate a healthy sort of growing up and her parents were anxious to avoid forcing Anna into a rigid pharisaical propriety as compensation for her terrible error.

  When a final decision was reached that Anna could not be kept at school, a good many more serious symptoms had come to light. Several petty thieveries (at first assumed to be absentminded borrowings), flagrant but ingenious cheating in laboratory work, calm lies about matters that were accepted as points of honor—all of this added up to make her expulsion imperative.

  At the half dozen or more subsequent schools attended by Anna, she often seemed to have changed, and for varying periods her family’s hope was high. Her behavior at each place fell into similar but not identical patterns. Like the persisting theme in a complicated work of music, her actions took diverse courses but came always to an identical point, which for her was failure. A Brahms concerto may spread and range, with woodwinds at one phase carrying the movement and, a little later, the violins manifesting something of another sort or the piano (as if in reply to the orchestra) weaving a fresh subject into the manifold skein; so through her history appeared episodes of variety and genuine novelty, all contributing to a design of impressive versatility but leading to an inevitable conclusion.

  Once or twice Anna completed the entire year, but nearly always each new institution found itself unable to handle her after a few months. Sometimes she worked steadily during the summer and easily completed courses she had missed in her numerous shiftings about. Perhaps on the basis of an excellent performance on the entrance examination, she gained admission to a distinguished college for women and, after being expelled, briefly attended a smaller college and two state universities. On other occasions she undertook training in business school, in hospitals (nursing, x-ray technician) and welfare work. She often expressed spontaneously a lively interest in this or that career and worked out her plans with good judgment, but, after widely varying periods during which she applied herself, she regularly ended by quitting voluntarily or being dismissed.

  When Anna sought some new job with which to occupy herself or to enter some course of training, she seemed to have no hesitation in giving as references those who had no choice except to describe her as entirely unreliable and unfit for what she planned. Sometimes the reason for her failures seemed not to lie so much in antisocial or spectacularly improper acts as in other maladaptations. A few excerpts from a letter follow:

  Mrs. Anna _____ has requested that we write you in regard to her work as a student in our School for Roentgenological Technicians … Because of her irregularity in attendance she lacked fourteen weeks of the period required in our course … It was necessary to admonish this student on several occasions because of her poor work … She repeatedly made mistakes, the seriousness of which seemed not to concern her in the least … Similar complaints were handed in against her by several instructors. The mistakes were never made through lack of intelligence … but apparently from disregard of consequences or some type of distraction … She was put on probation, twice for avoidable and grave mistakes, and once for her attendance record … On being threatened with dismissal because of her apparent disinterest, she, for a while, regularly demonstrated her fine ability … This student, we are compelled to say, was a definitely dangerous worker to have around Roentgenological apparatus. It became necessary to watch her carefully. She could not be trusted to carry out things on her own responsibility … When told of her failings, she always showed amazement and disbelief that she could possibly be doing anything wrong. She appeared to be sincere in such reactions … I find it impossible to recommend this person for work along these lines … I am convinced that her performance would be detrimental to the profession or to any group for which she might work … We regret that it is necessary to submit so unfavorable a report … This letter is written in response to her request.

  Among the almost limitless accumulation of incidents that loom in a retrospective glance at her career, only a few can be given here, and these in the utmost brevity.

  From one prep school she was dismissed though standing high in her classes after it was proved she had placed a half dozen or more rubber condoms so that these useful items would become unmistakably evident when several couples seated themselves on the two sofas that flanked the fireplace. Here, almost directly under chaperoning eyes, the younger pupils not yet given permission to go out with their boyfriends had circumspect dates on certain evenings. No sudden scurrying of mice could have evoked more hearty squeals or such quick explosive male laughter than the magic-like appearance of these unmistakable objects, some neatly rolled, others generously stuffed. Had only one or perhaps even two of the condoms emerged inconspicuously into view as the soft cushions shifted with the seating of couples, it might have been possible for an alert girl, or perhaps even for one of the self-conscious and preoccupied boys, to cover it and hide it away before general attention was aroused.

  Anna, it seems, had given some thought to this. Perhaps with time and retelling, some exaggeration has colored the event. It is said that an elastic band was set to snap one condom boldly forth and that others were placed so they would slip down from under the knitted antimacassars. At any rate, Anna made certain of a conspicuous display. Struck almost witless by the magic appearance of such an object in her lap (whence it had dropped from the top of the sofa), one girl released the initial squeal. Such uproar ensued automatically that hastening chaperones missed little of the scene.

  On numerous occasions Anna made difficulties for herself by driving off in cars that belonged to teachers or other school employees. Only once, or possibly twice, during her teens does it appear she had serious intentions of stealing the car for permanent possession. On the other hand, there were periods when she frequently stole underwear, stockings, and ornaments (usually inexpensive costume pieces or club pins) from other students and even from those in authority.

  While at the university, for a time she fell into the sporadic practice of relieving her dates of small amounts of cash she discovered in their pockets during heavy petting. Under such circumstances she also, but more rarely, took a pocketknife or a bunch of keys. At one finishing school where personal dignity among the faculty was emphasized, she is said to have lost her place as a student by neatly lettering on the door of the office of the sedate Latin instructress a concise advertisement:

  Hot p____ available here—cheap!

  After making good grades in a well-known college and having been in no serious trouble for several months, she began lying in bed too late to attend her early classes
. Interviews with the college physician, and eventually with a psychiatrist, followed. After several warnings and probationary measures, and just in time to avoid expulsion, she began to attend all classes again.

  During an interval in which she had no further trouble with the faculty, Anna alienated and outraged several girls in the dormitory with whom she had been very friendly. After a few bottles of beer which the group had shared, she entered the rooms occupied by two of these friends and, in their absence, urinated on several evening dresses which they highly valued. (After the act she refolded the dresses neatly and put them back, sodden and malodorous, in the drawers.) It was a number of days before evidence emerged that unmistakably connected Anna with this deed.

  Observations which in themselves were highly suggestive but not final proof were for a while withheld by those who could not bring themselves to believe Anna capable of such behavior. She easily denied such a possibility to several who spoke with her separately in the hope of finding facts that would exonerate her. She also fabricated evidence to establish her innocence so calmly and so freely that it carried almost axiomatic conviction. On being confronted with plain proof from several sources, she was able to smile off the affair and dismiss it as a whimsical prank. Some felt it was their responsibility as a group to report this incident, but so much was brought out in Anna’s behalf that all finally agreed to let the affair go no further.

  Merely tabulating these and many other details of Anna’s behavior tends to suggest rather easily formulated motivations. With a more complete story these appear less likely. If a good many of the stealing incidents are isolated, some would no doubt be inclined to interpret them as ordinary compulsive reactions. On the other hand, personal contact with her does not give the impression of an underlying anxiety or of any strong drive against which she struggles or which she would like to reject. In addition to taking things for which she has little or no need (and which might symbolize some ordinary unconscious aim), she also steals in response to a real though mild desire to possess or for convenience.* With a more inclusive view of her activities the thefts become more difficult to account for satisfactorily by the specific and familiar theories of compulsion. They, like so many of her other symptoms, seem part of a different and far less circumscribed psychopathology.

  Concentrating on the long record of her outlandish sexual promiscuity (some of which will soon be given), the most naive observer would perhaps think of “nymphomania” or at least of very powerful erotic drives. Others might surmise that she is and has always been a frigid (or partially frigid) woman who finds stimulation but never orgasm and who is driven more or less consciously to all sorts of indiscretions in a never-ending quest. Neither of these hypotheses seems to account for Anna’s behavior when one becomes familiar with more evidence pertaining to her inner experiences.

  Anyone’s real inner experience is, of course, difficult to arrive at even by conjecture and perhaps impossible to establish by proof. In a person so accomplished in devising falsehoods on any subject and in making them so convincing, Anna’s own statements can hardly be taken as necessarily true. There seems, indeed, but one way (and this one obviously not permissible) to discover directly a lady’s physical reactions to intercourse; and even then she can, it is said by some, often be misleading if she so wishes. Despite these difficulties, a rather convincing impression emerges that Anna’s sexual problem is very different and far more complicated than anything that has been mentioned.

  It seems likely that she has frequently experienced the physiologic reactions of orgasm but that these reactions have been a minor factor in her behavior pattern. Sometimes, while having technically satisfactory relations with a husband, she would continue intercourse with other men who, it seems, failed entirely to arouse or to gratify her in the usual sense. As a matter of fact, while living with the husband who, more regularly than any other man she can recall, made her “respond,” she initiated and continued relations with several other men. From some of these she neither particularly wanted nor ever received pleasure that could be called sensual or romantic.

  Although such conclusions are necessarily speculative (as they are, indeed, about any patient) and not scientifically verifiable, it seems most probable that this woman has somewhat less than ordinary conscious sexual motivation and that the most significant feature of her sexual experience is that, despite frequent mechanical responses, it has meant so little to her. The localized sensory reaction has not been greatly valued nor has it seemed to play a dominant role in directing her conduct. Anatomic intimacy with man has never been associated with interpersonal relationships of any consequence or duration. Important as this fact may be (granting that our estimate is in some measure correct), it still does not offer a circumscribed area in which a final explanation for Anna’s career can be readily drawn. In every other aspect of social experience also this woman has similarly failed to develop any sort of relationship with another human being that seemed to have much meaning for her or, to put it another way, that could influence her to any consistent, obviously purposive behavior.

  It is true indeed that this casual or “cheap” use of physical sexuality often appears to be a confused sort of vengeful or self-destructive response to hurt and rejection or to misleading essential concepts of “male” and “female.”164 The pattern followed sometimes suggests that such behavior may represent (with varying degrees of awareness in the subject) a “throwing of oneself away.” It may at the same time seem to return a hurt and symbolize a protest too profound and too complicated for words.* Anna’s sexual behavior and her generalized self-destructiveness (at social and personal levels) might be interpreted on such a basis. Let us remember, however, that such an interpretation is speculative. Let us refrain from projecting items of psychiatric theory into Anna’s unconscious and from assuming that they constitute evidence of emotional reactions in infancy that have shaped her subsequent course and by which we can confidently explain her career. Perhaps, some might say, serious and subtle traumatic events unknown to herself and others, even during the first year of her life or later, planted the seeds of a profound (unconscious) conflict which she has been forced to act out in this malignant pattern. No real evidence of this, however, has emerged in the study of her case.

  We may also consider the possibility that such a person as Anna might be born with a subtle and specific biologic defect. Perhaps, despite a high capacity for intelligence and charm, something necessary for wisdom or for sincere and major human feelings was left out or incomplete in her development. Capacities very different and much simpler are incomplete in the person born with color blindness or with a spastic deficiency in the motor system. Such biologic deficiencies are not necessarily hereditary. Let us assume that a defect in development may leave such a person as Anna without the capacity to attain deep loyalty or genuine love or to adequately recognize and react to the major goals and values of human life. The lack of major satisfactions and aspirations and the freedom from serious scruples or remorse might leave such a person free to act out any whim of folly or rebellion and offer some explanation for such a career as Anna’s.

  At 40 years of age, during our first interview, Anna absentmindedly checked the preliminary information blank to indicate her status as divorced. She spontaneously changed the pencil mark to show that she was married. As a matter of fact, Anna’s current marriage had lasted a good many years. It is true her husband was such in name only, but he served a practical purpose. The couple had not seen each other or otherwise communicated since shortly after the nuptials, but the legal existence of this union deterred Anna in one aspect of her behavior that had formerly given considerable trouble to her family and their attorneys.

  Before her last wedding and over a long period, she had fallen into the habit of marrying on an impulse apparently as trivial as what might lead another woman to buy a new hat. With one man after another she casually completed the legal ceremonies and entered into this monumental contract, the groom
being now an adventurous taxi driver, now an opportunistic bar companion, or, again, a delinquent idler she encountered in her welfare work.

  The succession of divorces and the repeated financial settlements demanded by vagrants and petty rascals she had on several occasions espoused threatened the family resources. Gratifying (and in contrast with some other cases of similar illness), Anna’s marriage series was halted by the prospect of legal bigamy.

  The husbands of this series were not (or certainly not usually) men who took the bride very seriously. This cannot be said of her earlier husbands, two of whom were distinguished and wealthy men and, according to the evidence, genuinely and deeply in love with Anna. With one of these, an architect of international repute, she lived for a while in England. To him and almost simultaneously to his wayward brother Anna is said to have given gonorrhea which, as the first year of marriage drew to a close, she inadvertently picked up from a sycophantic interior decorator, a person, according to report, more active homosexually than otherwise.

  I entertain some skepticism about the details of this episode. Such an extravagant and perfectly timed series of events scarcely seems possible. Though usually ready to deny anything inconsistent with chaste and honorable behavior, this patient has in other moods seemed to relish adding fanciful touches to the already spectacular reality. Her promiscuity has, however, been so lavish that coincidences almost impossible in a hundred other lives combined hardly seem unlikely in hers. There is little doubt that she was sufficiently unfaithful for this or something equally bizarre to have befallen the husband.