Essay: Citizen Kane – ‘The Man Who Lost Almost Everything He Had’

“The Man Who Lost Almost Everything He Had”
The ideas of autonomy and sense of self, stem from the wider perspective of the concept of individuality. But that very concept has been under the perpetual erosion by the forces of society and institution. Society is preceded by the rights of an individual. Capitalism has largely emerged victorious and essentially defeated communism. We are more individual now than we were decades back, yet we still behave the way society expects of us to. To truly understand the essence of the film “Citizen Kane”, we need to take a journey back in time and comprehend the decisions made by Charles Foster Kane to evaluate whether they were consistent with the social conventions of the time. Charlie Kane has been portrayed as an emotionally disorientated publishing magnate who, due to his wealth and aristocratic upbringing, considers himself as an individual who is above societal norms and therefore not subject to public judgment or scrutiny, which is why he never takes the initiative to fully re-immerse himself into society. We see his personality develop over the years, molded by different experiences he has encountered in the expanse of his particularly loveless life. We see his character evolve from a charismatic and spontaneous young man to a savage monster, incapable of listening to anything other than his own self. We see the first signs of ambition when he first decided to run a newspaper company of all the other business Mr. Thatcher could offer, essentially because he thought it would be, in his words, “fun.” He said he wanted to make a difference, to help the underprivileged. However, this very ambition later morphs into downright disillusionment in his old age when he resides alone in his Xanadu, away from the public eye, hiding behind a barrier of luxury he had created to separate, rather cage, himself from the rest of the world.
Motivated and driven by desperation to achieve and please, we see Kane lose almost everything he had. The following words by Jedediah Leland provide us with the most accurate psychosomatic understanding of Kane and his self-obsession.
“I suppose he had some private sort of greatness but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away. He never gave anything away, he just… left you a tip. He had a generous mind. I don’t suppose anybody ever had so many opinions. But he never believed in anything except Charlie Kane. He never had a conviction except Charlie Kane and his life. I suppose he died without one. It must have been pretty unpleasant. ‘Course, a lot of us check out without having any special convictions about death but we do know what we’re leaving. We believe in something.” It is evident that Charlie Kane believed in nothing but his own self and his image in society. He dedicated his lifetime to feed his narcissism in an effort to give himself an innate sense of meaning, value and purpose. The central idea of the personal vanity of an individual is that the individual is incapable of loving others or to express himself by empathic actions. Their actions are motivated and geared towards self-love, self-admiration, and self-pride and thus they remain unable to develop relationships with people.
Through the film there are various instances which propose that because of this lack of emotional connection with people around him, Kane imposes his authority on them. It may be seen as a lesson which he learnt in his childhood, when his mother Mrs. Kane made the decision for him to reside with Mr. Thatcher, and the only part Kane played at the moment was that of a powerless boy. It can be inferred that since that moment, Kane decided to be the one in power at all times. And this very quality of Kane has been the reason for his downfall in nearly all his endeavors. For instance, when he runs for the election to the Governor’s Office, he runs to gain power and more autonomy over the citizens. Unfortunately, his political adversary Boss J. W. Gettys reveals evidence of Kane’s sexual affair with Susan and bargains to conceal the same if Kane chooses to drop out of the election. Blinded by his megalomaniacal ego and to prove that he was the one in control of the situation, Kane refuses to back down, so confident was he of his popularity that he decisively loses his reputation, his first marriage, and the Governor’s Office.
Kane’s character has largely been motivated by his sense of loss of his childhood. Having been through adolescence void of maternal affection, Kane developed around him a shield of egotism to serve as a ‘defense mechanism’, which otherwise familial love would have compensated for. As a result, this very ego robbed him off his friends, his family, his career and essentially his life. “He married for love,” Leland says. “That’s why he did everything. That’s why he went into politics. It seems we weren’t enough. He wanted all the voters to love him, too. All he really wanted out of life was love.” Having spent the entirety of his youth without any sort of real attachment, Kane dedicates the rest of his life obsessing over his quest to find this love. It seems as if Kane is unable to distinguish between the notions of power and love in the ordinary course of his life. To Kane, love as an emotion is an economic commodity, wherein it can be exchanged or rather purchased by throwing money and favors towards an individual. Susan’s remark “Oh sure, you give me things. But that don’t mean anything to you” explicitly highlights this characteristic of Kane: he was a narcissistic man, who never really engaged himself in anything, professional or domestic, with full emotional conviction. He wanted to make people happy, but he wanted to make them happy so he could himself feel that sense of superiority that fulfilled his narcissistic splendor.
It can be inferred that Kane recognized and acknowledged the fact that his actions as an individual weren’t consistent with the ideals he initially began this career has a newspaper tycoon with. When Kane tells Mr. Thatcher “If I hadn’t been rich, I could’ve been a great man”, it shows how wealth had tarnished Kane’s mind as the progressed through life. He became the very individual he despised as a child. Kane attempted to use his authority to buy happiness and love, but clearly never really succeeded in doing the same. His moment of exhilaration comes at the very beginning of his life when he is merely an innocent child playing in the snow with his sled at which point he lives in poverty, and his mind not corrupted by wealth and privilege. In the film Kane endeavors to create a moment in his life where he can bring back that level of happiness and exuberance to himself. It’s almost ironic how all people spend a lifetime trying to get what Kane had, yet Kane’s most vibrant memory of life was when he was a “nobody”.
The man’s last word, “Rosebud” seems to be a call, a wry cry to his lost childhood, because to him nothing meaningful has happened in his life since that fateful decision when his mother decided to send him with Mr. Thatcher; a decision which changed the course of his life. Kane’s extravagant expenditure in trifles may be seen as a sub-conscious attempt to fill a certain kind of void in his life. At the end of the film, we catch a glimpse of all the statues and trophies he collected during his particularly interesting life, he is obsessed with collecting because these items are the only constant in his life. Each statue is a fragment of his soul, they represent him: indifferent to the world around, cold and emotionally desolate. People are nothing but artifacts to him, articles invested in to derive pleasure. Mr. Bernstein presented Kane with a Trophy on behalf of the employees of The Inquirer, which Kane did not accept initially, as he was in a haste to get married to Emily. He came back, however, to accepted the trophy as it was a symbol of victory, a checkpoint accomplished. We can figure out at this point that such symbols of self-actualization and esteem mean the world to Kane. However, the exuberance of the same lasts only for a moment as when he gets down to his buggy, he hands the trophy down to his driver and the desire for the same evaporates. When we catch a glimpse of all such articles collected and treasured in his life at the end of the film, post Kane’s death, we can conclude that symbols of such prominence did hold hyperbolic, yet momentary, significance to his self-esteem.
Citizen Kane is a movie which explicitly highlights the detrimental effects of bad decisions made in succession by an individual. The first and the most obvious one being that of choosing his mistress, Susan, over his first wife, socialite Emily Norton, and a potentially auspicious political career as a Governor. His ego, however, made him believe that he was loved by all, and that the blot of one love-scandal on his political image would have no significant impact on the love the public had for him. Many more followed as we chronologically advance through his life as in the film. Erecting an Opera house in Chicago for Susan and subsequently imposing on her to sing against her will may definitely be considered another. Blinded by his ego and driven by narcissism, he was convinced, rather determined, that he knew what she wanted, consequently leading to her attempting suicide, and finally to the demise of his second marriage.
We may conclude by his past decisions that Kane did not have a particularly likeable personality, but he injects this peculiar customary humor and grief in his character which ultimately leaves him wrapped in pathos and pity. “Everything was his idea, except my leaving him”, Susan’s statement to Mr. Thompson reveals that living with Kane was a constant struggle to remain a participant in his life, because he had a tendency to make them an observer. It must be noted, however, that the film is based on the memories of the people involved in his live. Each person thus interviewed served a different purpose in his life, thereby giving us a diversity of perspective in terms of the different stages and their significance in his life. One of Kane’s defining qualities is his propensity for seclusion and the act of perpetually – whether intentionally or unintentionally is still unclear – distancing people away in his life. It is needless to say that none were intensely happy with Kane and his life-choices, leaving room for doubt if their accounts, rather stories, of him were biased in order to present him in his worst form or were genuine historic facts. A fragmented image is all that we get from them, a Kane full of holes. But that very image helps us sympathize with him as he approaches his end. The fact that no individual really told us, explicitly or implicitly, what Kane’s conviction was could either mean that he never considered anyone close enough to him to reveal the deepest parts of his self, or that as perfectly put in Mr. Leland’s words “he died without having one”.
The film’s direction aims to manifest how the fragments of our existence survive only in the memories of others. Here is a man who made shadow figures with his fingers to recede the pain of a lady’s toothache. A man who despised the traction trust yet became one of the most sensational capitalists in American history. A man who chose a love affair over his marriage and a glorious political career. And a man who despite having entertained millions, died alone. He is the man who lost almost everything he had, and he had a lot. This masterpiece leaves its viewers in an introspective gleam, questioning their actions and morality, but most importantly questioning their purpose: what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?