Tom Sawyer’s lessons on manipulation
And how paying attention to our projections is a free therapy ride
Do you remember that scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, where aunt Polly makes Tom paint a really long fence? He doesn't want to do it – he’d rather be playing, and during that afternoon he discovers that he can get other people to paint for him.
His method baffled my teenage mind.
Tom gets inspired and starts painting as if he is enjoying it, as if that fence is his own work of art. When one of the town boys appears, ready to mock him for having to work, Tom ignores him and keeps painting, using slow brushstrokes and pausing to inspect the surface, like an artist. He says, «Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?».
The boy becomes interested and asks if he can try it out. Tom first says no — it is a delicate job — and then he allows himself to be persuaded, accepting an apple in return.
After a while, there is a team of people painting the fence, and Tom sits back watching them, eating the apple. «He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.»
This scene stuck with me all these years because it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. It still does. Tom discovered a very common sales technique and used it to get what he wanted. Why did that bother me?
Usually, the things that unsettle me usually have something to teach me about myself. Jung said it best: «Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves». So when I notice the discomfort, I wonder: What does this uneasiness say about myself? What can I learn from it?
I am afraid to say yes when I want to say no
When I think about childhood trauma, I tend to picture the serious stuff, and I find it hard to relate to. But throughout the years I have been able to pinpoint parts of my behaviour that are rooted in my upbringing, and one of them was a sort of people-pleasing that came from the time I spent saying yes because I was «afraid» to say no — as a kid I believed I had to be well-mannered and have good grades to stay out of trouble, to feel «safe».
[Recently, I’ve learned that there’s a word for this: fawning. Peter Walker used this word as the fourth «f» in the fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses to trauma, describing it as a way children find safety and attachment by becoming helpful and compliant servants of their parents». At its extreme, this behaviour can turn into Stockholm syndrome.]
I have since learned to say no, sometimes too eagerly. Stephen Covey said that to say no — pleasantly, smilingly, unapologetically — we need a bigger yes burning inside. The burning yes inside made me very deliberate in how I allocate my energy and time.
I’ve learned to say no in order to create and maintain boundaries and to advocate for what I feel is better for myself. Life is too short to waste time with things and people that don’t bring me love, growth, or peace.
I am bothered by Tom’s actions because I equate (perceived) manipulation with unwanted pressure and emotional blackmail. If I sense someone trying to charm or sweet-talk me into something, my claws come out. When I see someone I love being swayed to someone else's benefit, my protective instincts kick in.
Tom's actions bother me because they take me back to a time when I couldn't say no, and they activate the mechanisms I've developed to protect myself.
I ask myself: Am I manipulating others? Is it wrong?
Is manipulation inherently wrong? If we lean on the root of the word, which comes from hand and handling, it becomes a tactic that can be applied for good or for evil (even if today we use the word to describe controlling someone dishonestly to your own advantage).
The same tactics that sell junk food to kids can be used to promote healthy eating in schools, and in both is used a communication strategy to get the message across. It is a form of manipulation when a trainer chooses a specific set of exercises to «make» the participants of a workshop move smoothly through a given topic — in a way that is helpful to both the trainer and the trainees.
These tactics become harmful when they are prejudicial to someone's well-being, and Buddhists might say that they will bring suffering when your intention is bad, not only the result. It is particularly wrong when they are used with someone that is not able to say no, like when there is a power imbalance.
For two sad months in my life, just out of college, I tried selling vacuum cleaners. I’ll never forget watching a colleague pressure a woman into buying a device she didn’t need — a woman with debt already weighing her down. In that moment, I understood why sales wasn’t for me.
What about Tom’s manipulation? Are his intentions bad? Are the other boys suffering because of his actions? Or is it just wrong that he is pretending to feel something that he is not really feeling and tricking the boys to do the work for him?
What about when we are kind to a customer-service person because we know that it is the best way to get what we want? And what about all those little things that we say and do to grease the social wheels?
I have moments when I feel something and act as if I was feeling something else, more «appropriate» to the situation, like smiling to someone when I am feeling dead inside, just because it is the polite thing to do.
I may phrase my words in a certain way when I am trying to control an outcome. And even if I try to do it with transparency, respect, and consideration for others, there are times when «consideration» is a line, a compromise, between my needs and the other person’s needs.
Tom's actions bother me because I see myself in them, and they make me think about where I stand on the good and evil spectrum.
Am I doing it to myself?
This has been a theme in my life: noticing manipulation, in others and in myself, and how I react to it, and noticing how I deal with boundaries and the way I prioritise (or not) my needs.
Lately I’ve been discovering a new level to this, something that has been hiding in plain sight: the way I manipulate myself, the way I pretend that everything is alright and brush the uncomfortable emotions to the side, or muffle them under food or a numbing afternoon in front of a screen.
Faking it (until you make it) or acting as if can be a way of regulating emotions. We can exhale deeply to try and calm anxiety, act as if we are brave when doing something scary, or even find a higher purpose to lift the weight of a difficult situation. It’s also useful in poker games.
But putting our feelings aside over and over can be a way of saying that they are not adequate or that who we are here and now is not good enough. What I've been hearing lately, from different sources (as if the universe is trying to tell me something), is that the way to go about it is to learn to stay in the discomfort, little by little, and to find out what the lesson is.
I am learning to do that with the guilt that still shows up when I say no or when I prioritise my needs. I try to pay attention to it, recognise where it comes from, and just accept that it is there — maybe it’s a way to calibrate my choices.
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This fence-painting scene is a brilliant way to show Tom Sawyer’s personality, a great example of show, don’t tell. His choices reflect his character in Mark Twain’s story, and that is true to most (all?) of us: our choices reflect how we grew up, the experiences we had, the lessons we learned, and even our genes. But if the way we deal with manipulation is a consequence of all these things, it may also become the consequence of new experiences and new lessons learned.
I’m glad that I’ve asked myself why I was bothered by Tom’s actions and why I have such strong reactions when someone is trying to sell me something. Paying attention to what bothers me in others is a free therapy ride, a mirror to my soul that helps me understand how far I have come, the things I am still learning, and what I really need to pay attention to.
[I first started writing about Tom Sawyer in August 2023, and picked it up again about a month ago, right after I published my last article. I should probably have done this in therapy — it took a while to unearth my emotions and organise my thoughts.
I would love to hear yours. Do you have something that repeatedly bothers you in others? Do you find it difficult to say no? Do you feel guilty when prioritising your needs?
And if you have found ways to stay in the discomfort of tough emotions instead of numbing them down, please share them below. I know I am not alone in this.
Thank you for reading.]