Citizen Kane Essay Example
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a movie about the ‘American dream’ of power, money and materialistic possessions not being as desirable as one may believe, It is rather a false happiness when it corrupts the innocence of a child, and isolates a person into a miserable existence. Charles Foster Kane was a victim of this reality as his life story is told by the News March and by various people that were once a part of his life. The director, producer and main actor Orson Welles did a magnificent job portraying multiple different themes including the loss of innocence, power and money can corrupt and isolate a person, and can you really know a person.
Welles uses significant symbols for clues to the theme of the loss of innocence. A major symbol of this theme is the snow globe. When Kane is dying he drops the snow globe that represents his childhood as a simple and peaceful place much like the life he lived with his parents as a child when he is playing with his sled. It also plays a role as a link between Susan and his mother because the first night that he meets Susan he sees the snow globe and mentions his mother. Susan is a peaceful woman in which Charles can rely on to escape from the reality of the hectic world he lives in but one day she will abandon him, just as his mother abandoned him as a child. The snow globe is the world that Kane wishes to live in, peaceful and simple.
Another major symbol is the sled that Kane played with as a child, Rosebud. Rosebud is significant because it represents his childhood before it was corrupted by power and money. There is a scene of Kane playing on that sled before he was taken away from his family, which demonstrates how much happier he was as an innocent child even though his family had very little money. The sled played a role as Kane’s childhood comfort blanket. When Kane is taken away from his home, he tries to resist Thatcher by hitting him in the stomach with it, which represents some sense of the sled acting as
Citizen Kane is a movie about the ‘American dream’ of power, money and materialistic possessions not being as desirable as one may believe, It is rather a false happiness when it corrupts the innocence of a child, and isolates a person into a miserable existence. Charles Foster Kane was a victim of this reality as his life story is told by the News March and by various people that were once a part of his life. The director, producer and main actor Orson Welles did a magnificent job portraying multiple different themes including the loss of innocence, power and money can corrupt and isolate a person, and can you really know a person.
Welles uses significant symbols for clues to the theme of the loss of innocence. A major symbol of this theme is the snow globe. When Kane is dying he drops the snow globe that represents his childhood as a simple and peaceful place much like the life he lived with his parents as a child when he is playing with his sled. It also plays a role as a link between Susan and his mother because the first night that he meets Susan he sees the snow globe and mentions his mother. Susan is a peaceful woman in which Charles can rely on to escape from the reality of the hectic world he lives in but one day she will abandon him, just as his mother abandoned him as a child. The snow globe is the world that Kane wishes to live in, peaceful and simple.
Another major symbol is the sled that Kane played with as a child, Rosebud. Rosebud is significant because it represents his childhood before it was corrupted by power and money. There is a scene of Kane playing on that sled before he was taken away from his family, which demonstrates how much happier he was as an innocent child even though his family had very little money. The sled played a role as Kane’s childhood comfort blanket. When Kane is taken away from his home, he tries to resist Thatcher by hitting him in the stomach with it, which represents some sense of the sled acting as