Decoding “Rosebud”: Orson Welles’ Greatest Narrative Trick

“Rosebud.” Just one word. The last word of a dying man, breathed on his deathbed. But it intrigues a reporter to solve the mystery behind it. Why did he say it? What or who was it? And what did it mean? The reporter thinks that if he can find the meaning of Rosebud, he can find the man. This quest leads him to unravel the entire life, the whole existence, of an imposing press baron, Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles).

And just like that, “Rosebud” kicks off the entire narrative of Citizen Kane (1941), widely viewed as the best movie ever made.

The entire film is about finding the meaning of this last word. The word that is believed to hide the deepest mysteries behind worldly success and power. And that’s precisely why it’s much more than a plot device.

The creation of Kane’s last word, and the quest for its meaning, are as convoluted and debated as Mr. Kane himself. So, let’s try to solve this over-80-year-old mystery and ascertain if we can find out who Charles Foster Kane is.

More than MacGuffin: The Thematic Weight of Rosebud

In Citizen Kane, “Rosebud” is the flicker that sets off the series of incidents that strive to solve a mystery called Charles Foster Kane. It’s the engine that pulls the entire story forward. Although the characters famously fail to solve this mystery, we, as viewers, come pretty close.

The Engine of the Plot: The Journalistic Quest

The story opens with Kane on his deathbed in his vast, empty palatial house, Xanadu. He admires a snow globe. He whispers only one word under his flailing breath, "Rosebud," and lets go. The snow globe drops, tumbles off a few steps, and it crashes into pieces on the floor.

Kane was not a regular Joe; he was very influential. Everything he did, everything he said, was paid close attention to. So obviously, his last word, regardless of—or because of—how unusual it was, causes a lot of intrigue. Because of Kane’s stature, Rosebud becomes a puzzle worth solving.

The Quest for Meaning: Driving the Narrative

Rosebud is what Hitchcock would call a MacGuffin: an object, device, or event that triggers the narrative plot but is not crucial to the overall story. The narrative of Citizen Kane is structured with flashbacks from Kane’s life and the reporter’s interviews of Kane’s friends, rivals, and associates. The reporter chases Rosebud, thinking it’s a person, perhaps a woman Kane loved and amorously referred to as Rosebud, or maybe a place or a thing. In the end, he gives up, concluding his biographical piece by calling Rosebud a missing part of a jigsaw puzzle.

The Audience Knows Better

In the denouement, it is revealed that Kane’s countless possessions are being incinerated. The camera scans across a large hall containing multiple pieces of varied value just lying there. The camera finally settles on one piece: Kane’s childhood sled with Rosebud painted on it. Unaware of what it is, a worker picks it up and shoves it in an incinerator along with other things.

None of the characters within the story ever learn it. But as the audience, we have a bird's-eye view of Kane’s life. In the flashback to 1871, we see Kane as a child. Back then, gold was discovered in a mine belonging to Kane’s mother, Mary Kane (Agnes Moorehead). Mary saw it as an opportunity to protect Charles from his alcoholic and abusive father. She hired Walter Thatcher (George Coulouris) to establish an education trust for Charles and appointed him as his legal guardian. While they discussed Charles’s future, Charles happily played outside with his sled (*Rosebud) in the snow.

This marks the defining moment in Kane’s life.

After their discussion is finalized, little Charles is called in and informed about his future. This moment was practically the end of Charles’ childhood. From here on, he would start his journey to be the adult Kane that the world would come to know—the ruthless, pragmatic, conceited Citizen Kane.

That sled, Rosebud, in the snow, was the last happy thing Kane remembers before everything became dark. Also, one thing to be noted: a child doesn’t “name” a toy unless they have a profound and meaningful connection with it. Kane, the child, was happy enough to feel a connection with a toy. He neither had any enemies nor was he consumed by the hunger for power and money. People didn’t pretend to like him for his influence. He was genuinely loved by his mother. It was indeed an idyllic time in Kane’s life. The only time when he was genuinely happy.

As Thatcher’s mentee, Kane grew up and went on consuming the material aspects of life, and in turn, that material life consumed him. It was the professional life of give-and-take, pure calculation.

The adult Kane, now at the end of his life, had wisened enough to tell real happiness from a mirage. He still associates that day—little Charles playing with his sled in the snow—as the last moment of real happiness he ever felt. Comparing it with the rest of his time on earth, Kane understood that the basic remainder of his “powerful” life was zero—except for that small part that meant something.

The part eternally imprinted on his memory as “Rosebud.” Rosebud, the sled, is the symbolic heart of Kane’s life.

The Making of a Mystery: The Creative Genesis of Rosebud

The story of how it came to be a sled, and why it was named “Rosebud” among all names, is just as interesting as its cinematic mystery. The origins even have real-life connections.

The Mankiewicz Connection

Biographer Richard Merman notes that screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz had a bicycle as a child, and it was named Rosebud. While little Herman was in a library, someone stole Rosebud. Mankiewicz felt the pain of losing his beloved bicycle well into his adulthood. This is the cleanest, most poignant, and most viable origin story that makes complete sense and also fits perfectly in the film’s thematic core of lost childhood.

The William Randolph Hearst Connection

This is a much tangier and peppery origin story. It’s a well-known fact that Hearst, a high-profile newspaper publisher and a politician, much like Charles Foster Kane, thought the movie was an unflattering portrayal of him and pulled every trick in the book to stop the movie from being released.

The character of Kane’s second wife, Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), is believed to be loosely based on Hearst’s mistress, actress Marion Davies. Gore Vidal famously claimed that Mankiewicz told him that “Rosebud” was Hearst’s very private and crude nickname for a “specific part” of Davies’ anatomy. If we are to believe this theory, there is room to assume that the film wasn’t only a comment on materialism and the pain of lost childhood, but a very personal inside joke.

The Sled in the Snow and the Snow in the Globe

Rosebud is essentially a paradox: both a central key to Citizen Kane and a crafty red herring. Whether it’s the Mankiewicz’s bicycle story or the Hearst gossip, both only add layers to Rosebud’s mystique.

Rosebud is also Citizen Kane’s master key. This is where the film’s philosophical core, emotional impact, and fractured structure come together. It proves that a simple object can carry the emotional weight of the whole movie if there are profound thematic elements associated with it—in the case of Citizen Kane, those elements are the sorrow of lost innocence and the impossibility of ever fully capturing a human life.

The word “Rosebud” may be a storytelling device, a piece of insider lore, and a directorial ploy, but in the end, it’s really just a word painted on a sled, consumed by flames, telling us that not every mystery can be solved.