Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews October 2, 2023 September 25, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Citizen Kane opens with the camera panning across a spooky, seemingly deserted estate in Florida called Xanadu. The camera lingers on a "No Trespassing" sign and a large "K" wrought on the gate, then gradually makes its way to the house, where it appears to pass through a lit window. A person is lying on a slab-like bed. Snowflakes suddenly fill the screen. As the camera pulls back, a snow-covered cabin comes into view. The camera pulls back more quickly to show that what we have been looking at is actually just a scene inside a snow globe in the hand of an old man. The camera focuses on the old man’s mouth, which whispers one word: "Rosebud." He then drops the globe, which rolls onto the floor and shatters. Reflected in the curve of a piece of shattered glass, a door opens and a white-uniformed nurse comes into the room. She folds the old man’s arms over his chest and covers his face with a sheet.
In the next scene, a newsreel entitled News on the March announces the death of Charles Foster Kane, a famous, once-influential newspaper publisher. The newsreel, which acts as a lengthy obituary, gives an overview of Kane’s colorful life and career and introduces some of the important people and events in Kane’s life. The newsreel plays in a small projection room filled with reporters. The producer of the newsreel tells the reporters he’s not happy with the film because it merely recounts Kane’s life, instead of revealing who Kane truly was. He notes that Kane’s last word was "Rosebud" and wonders if that may hold the key to Kane’s character. He decides to stall the newsreel’s release and sends a reporter, Jerry Thompson, to talk to Kane’s former associates to try to uncover the identity of Rosebud.
Thompson first interviews Kane’s ex-wife, Susan Alexander Kane, who works as a dancer and singer in a dingy bar. Susan is drunk and uncooperative. A waiter hovers over her and tells Thompson that Susan has been unwilling to talk about Kane since he died, although she spoke of him often when he was alive. The waiter also says he asked Susan about Rosebud after Kane died and she claimed she’d never heard of Rosebud. Thompson then goes to the bank that houses the memoirs of Kane’s childhood guardian, Walter Parks Thatcher. As Thompson begins to read these memoirs, the image of the page dissolves into a flashback to Kane’s childhood.
A roughly chronological series of flashbacks tells Kane’s life story from five different points of view. The first flashback shows how Thatcher meets Kane. Kane’s mother, Mary, runs a boarding house in rural Colorado. In lieu of a payment, one of her tenants gives her some stock in what she thinks is a worthless mine; it turns out to give her ownership of the Colorado Lode, a working gold mine. Finding herself suddenly wealthy, she decides to send away her son, Charles, to be raised by her banker, Thatcher. Charles is understandably upset and whacks Thatcher with the sled he's been happily riding when Thatcher shows up to escort him away. Kane’s relationship with Thatcher never improves. Vignettes from their years together show Kane engaging in questionable journalism, wasting money, and constantly enraging Thatcher.
Thompson interviews other people who were close to Kane, and these characters relate their memories of the man through flashbacks as well. Thompson speaks first with Kane’s good friends and employees, Mr. Bernstein and Jedediah Leland, and has one more conversation with his ex-wife Susan. Most significantly, Thompson interviews the butler, Raymond, who remembers Kane saying “Rosebud” following a violent episode after Susan left him. Each person gives his or her own version of an abandoned, lonely boy who grows up to be an isolated, needy man. All reveal in some way that Kane is arrogant, thoughtless, morally bankrupt, desperate for attention, and incapable of giving love. These faults eventually cause Kane to lose his paper, fortune, friends, and beloved second wife, Susan. Thompson, the reporter, never does find out what Kane meant by "Rosebud." Giving up the quest, Thompson is leaving Kane’s abandoned castle, Xanadu, when the camera pans a scene of workers burning some of Kane’s less valuable possessions. In the fire is the sled that Kane was riding the day his mother sent him away. Painted on the sled is the name Rosebud.
Please wait while we process your payment