Rosebud.
One word opened the gates to the mystery of who Charles Foster Kane grew up to be -or how he did not. In the film, Citizen Kane, by Orson Wells, Kane's narcissistic trait was highlighted throughout the entirety of the movie. Early in Kane's childhood, his future could be seen through a deeply focused window in the background, while his parent's sold him away to wealth. The squared window cast a sense of imprisonment and shield from any parental interaction. While his parents remained home in a safe environment, left in the cold, unknown world with a stranger was Kane. As a result of this abandonment, Kane only became interested in himself. He set off to create an ego too big for the world. Kane's narcissistic quality grew throughout his adolescence due to a loss of morality and control.
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Growing up, a young Kane lost morals with not having guidance to understand complexities of life and developing an unhealthy love for self-image. With losing a childhood, he lost the period to be a kid and learn life lessons. Kane lacked regulation and morals as he became self-involved in what to do to gain attention from the people. This lack became apparent when Kane decided to run a newspaper following the guidelines of yellow journalism.
Beginning to develop a self-fulling prophecy by this point arrived from the need to take control of something bigger than him. Since his childhood was snatched away from his hands, the need for control burned inside him; the fire tingling at the end of his fingertips. Kane felt that since his early life choices were made for him, he should do the same for others through a mass media channel. The power he turned out to achieve lead him to people admiring and eulogizing him, but his soul remained empty inside.
Embracing such vanity damaged Kane and exceeded the activity of total control. The wealth and power he suppressed began to increase as his ego began to get to him and no one wanted to keep on feeding him admiration. Mentally abusing the women he ‘loved’ developed from the need for them to praise him. These women were treated like ragdolls, but a blinded Kane ignored any signs of suffering, unable to think rationally of good outcomes to save a relationship because all he thought about was himself. Kane believed he could only control his fate to go well. Building Xanadu for himself and Susan Alexander turned out to be a signal to continue having attention from the people, even after embarrassingly losing a place in the government. Kane believed he conquered society in this phrase, "If you're interested in what people say ... I'm an authority on what the papers will say." The audience realizes just how much manipulation he overlooked. Kane assumed he owned the people and in having this ideology, he lost the people that once empathized him.
The need for admiration and pride for himself almost made it seem like he was trying to get his parents attention. All the authority and fame gained served to prove a point that the American dream was being accomplished, no thanks to his parent’s abandonment. In the end, as grandiose and wealthy as he became, nothing meant a dime to him. The snow globe appeared to represent the only material thing he longed. It embodied being a better man rather than the selfish person he became. The longing stare towards the snowglobe melted away his egotistical shell. In the end, nothing else mattered to him only then filling in the hole in his life jigsaw puzzle through following his footsteps back to his kept word, Rosebud.
