Citizen Kane

"Singer"

At first, it seems that Kane is making a rather stupid decision when he decides to build Susan Alexander an opera house and turn her into a star. However, there are a few possible explanations for this massive waste of money, labor, and singing lessons. The first and most obvious, is that perhaps Kane did all of this, built an opera house, forced Susan to take singing lessons, and perform, because he did after all have some basic form of incredibly misguided love for her. We see that when they first meet, Kane seems very happy when he is around her, and decides to stay with her even at the complete cost of his budding political career. Perhaps he viewed it as some kind of incredibly extravagant wedding gift to her, and thus was determined to make her famous. However, this seems somewhat unlikely, as Susan often expresses distaste for the whole idea. If Kane truly loved her, he would probably simply do what she wanted him to. A more likely explanation for the whole affair, is that Kane, crushed and defeated by his political opponent, would be more determined than ever to win the love of the people, as Jed Leeland said. Therefore, he would devote himself to giving the people an opera star. The public would love and worship this person, and maybe also love and worship the man who gave them their new goddess. However, this theory raises the question: why then, did he not do this with a woman who could actually sing well? Because of the inconsistencies brought about by both hypotheses, perhaps in the end, it was a combination of both. Perhaps Kane loved Susan in the beginning, but then realized that he could use her as a vehicle to even greater fame and fortune.