Citizen Kane Essay

Citizen Kane The movie Citizen Kane is about an extremely wealthy newspaper monger, Charles Foster Kane that lives in an enormous palace like domain called Xanadu in Florida. The movie opens with Kane uttering his last word “rosebud” and dropping a snow globe on the floor as he dies. Jerry Thompson, a reporter from a newsreel visits many of Kane’s closest companions in order to find out what rosebud, his mysterious last word, actually means. Thompson attempts to talk with Susan Alexander, Kane’s second wife, but he is turned away from her so head off to look through Walter Parks Thatcher manuscript to gain a clue as to what rosebud could be. Thompson arranges for interviews with Kane’s business manager, Mr. Bernstein, Jedidiah Leland, his best friend, Susan, and the butler that works at Xanadu, Raymond. Through a series of flashbacks into Kane’s life, it is revealed that Kane lived in a house in Colorado until his mother sends him to live with Walter Parks Thatcher on the East Coast to receive an education. Kane entered the newspaper business at 25 after he acquired control over all his money which is when he takes control over the Inquirer newspaper. He competes with the newspaper The Chronicle and reigns in all the best writers for himself to write for his growing newspaper. He then marries the president’s niece, Emily Norton with whom he has a son, and attempts to run for governor of New York. Kane has an affair with singer Susan Alexander which is revealed after his rival in elections sends a note to Mrs. Kane telling her of Charles’s endeavors with Susan. Kane marries Susan after Emily leaves him and wanted her to pursue her singing so he built her an opera house where she had a singing instructor and a disastrous opening show. During this time Kane is in the midst of building Xanadu where he spends his last years alone and isolated from the world because Susan left him and he grows apart from his friends. In the end “rosebud” is revealed to be a sled that represented the only time that Kane knew true happiness.
General History In the movie after Kane bought over the Inquirer and has been running it for about a year when Mr. Thatcher, Kane’s benefactor, visits to advise Kane to sell the newspaper and do something useful. However, Kane tells Mr. Thatcher that he plans to use the newspaper to rile up the people’s support for the Spanish American War due to tensions in Cuba. Kane wanted to use media as a way to get the people to start a war against Spain even if that meant he had to fake some photos and articles to get people to believe what was happening in Cuba. It was a war where Spain was against the United States after they had been observing revolts against Spanish rule in Cuba for a while and when one of the American battleships was sunk, the US was pressured into a war because the Spanish failed to accept a compromise. Another historical event that was showcased in the movie was the stock market crash. Kane saw that after World War I ended, the economy was destroyed and people were bankrupt and some left starving because there were no jobs to provide money. The crash of the economy hit everybody, including Kane, who lost a lot of money but was still able to keep afloat. Historically, the Great Depression hit in the 1920’s right after World War I ended when the United States withdrew from European Markets and banks causing a worldwide stock market crash. The after effects were ghastly because there was not enough money after the war to rebuild cities and towns that had been ravaged by World War I. Lastly, World War I was another event mentioned in the movie by Kane. He didn’t support America’s involvement in the war and wanted them to withdraw immediately, but was not able to gain enough support from the people to fulfill his wish. America’s entrance into World War I happened after Germany sunk a cruise liner that had 140 American passengers that were journeying back to the United States. America’s

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