Hope for Rosemary's Baby
“Afterthoughts” is a new Fear of God blog series featuring co-hosts and guests further unpacking thoughts, themes, and ideas that keep them up at night from the conversations and content covered on the show. This entry is following up on this past week’s episode on Rosemary’s Baby, available here. Enjoy, then, this first entry in a new chapter of The Fear of God…
It always struck me as surprising that whenever I would tell people one of my all-time favorite movies is Rosemary’s Baby, they would seem shocked. Or that those who hadn’t seen it and took my advice to watch it never appeared to catch the same enthusiasm that I felt.
More often than not, the dear ones in my life, after a first viewing, appeared to walk away with a sour taste in their mouths (Maybe it was all the tannis root). There was a sense of disappointment in their eyes, and their jaws would clench as they explained how upsetting they found the ending. How tragic the whole ordeal turned out - how unfair the outcome was - let alone all of the traumatic imagery it takes to just get to the ending.
Poor, poor, sweet Rosemary!
While, of course, I also feel the discomfort of enduring watching such a good and loving person as Rosemary Woodhouse suffer so much at the hands of others; and the apparent “all-is-lost” scenario in which she finds herself - I walked away from this film with a profoundly different feeling. The ending is, perhaps, one of the reasons I love this story so much.
If you’ll indulge me - I’d like to explain why.
(I will be making direct references to and from the book by Ira Levin as well. In the novel, we catch a deeper glimpse into the thoughts of Rosemary herself, which lends some needed clarity to much of what she chooses over the course of the story.)
Rosemary’s Baby begins with a young, newly married couple, Guy & Rosemary Woodhouse, moving into a much-coveted apartment in a picturesque building in New York City. Rosemary, an eager home-maker wed to an aspiring actor, is thrilled at the possibilities of nesting in this new shelter and starting their family within its strong, beautiful walls.
Knowing what I knew after seeing the film, it is perhaps the most chilling sentence in the whole book, when Rosemary turns to her husband, after begging him to make up a story to get them a showing of The Bramford (their soon-to-be new residence) and exclaims:
“‘You see how you can think of things’” Rosemary said, putting Peds and yellow shoes on her feet. “‘You’re a marvelous liar.’” (P. 7)
It cannot go without acknowledging that their very admittance to the building in the first place was founded upon Guy Woodhouse’s exceptional ability to be deceptive - a trait that Rosemary herself has grown to rely upon in their young marriage.
However, their good fortune has not been enjoyed for long before an old friend of Rosemary’s, “Hutch”, begins to try to talk them out of it. The Bramford apparently has had a sordid history - complete with witches who eat young children, devil worshippers slain in the lobby of the building, and a variety of other unpleasant misfortunes to have befallen the old place.
“I was at the library this afternoon with Times Index and three hours of microfilm; would you care to hear more?” (P. 19)
(Would that we were all so lucky to have such a devoted friend as Edward Hutchins.)
These warnings are dismissed as bad-but-ancient history and coincidence, and the move continues.
Rosemary wastes no time at all making the old apartment into a fresh, clean, new home for her and her husband, all with the gleaming expectation that someday soon, one of these rooms will become a nursery.
That is, if Guy ever comes around to the idea.
It becomes increasingly apparent over the course of the story that Rosemary is the quintessential home-maker and helpmate. She is devoted to her charming and talented, albeit struggling and somewhat moody husband. She is diligent in her home-keeping, and kind to the odd, elderly neighbor couple that they perchanced to have met after the tragic suicide of a young woman who lived with them as a kind of ward. The one thing at which Rosemary does not seem to excel - is setting boundaries.
Agreeing to have dinner with Minnie and Roman Castevet was an act of compassion on Rosemary’s part - a desire to help them cope with a devastating loss. To Guy, who scoffs at the idea when first presented with it - it is an attempt to make Rosemary happy.
“It’ll be my good deed for today,” he says, conceding to her effervescent sweetness.
However, the tables turn once they’re within the bizarre walls of the energetic, eccentric Castevets’. Rosemary, compliant as ever, muscles through an uneventful, if somewhat awkward, evening. But Guy seems to be thrilled to finally have someone to talk to about theater - and perhaps to have his ego stroked by the relentless praise of Roman.
“Laughing, Guy said ‘That makes two of us!’ and cast a bright eyed glance at Rosemary. She smiled back, pleased that Guy was pleased; there would be no reproofs from him now for an evening wasted talking with Ma and Pa Settle, no Kettle.” (P. 57)
Rosemary’s sense of happiness tends to come directly from the satisfaction of those around her - especially her husband. Confessing to Minnie Castevet while washing dishes for an unusually long time that she came from a very large (and quite hostile) family, it isn’t hard to connect that Rosemary may have felt forgotten in the mix. Compliance, it would seem, is Rosemary Woodhouse, Shy-Girl-From-Small-Town-Omahaw’s coping mechanism of choice.
The Castevets prove to be very helpful neighbors. Too helpful, in fact. With Minnie showing up at the door at any hour she pleases (and God-forbid, bringing friends with her!) and asking any kind of personal question, Rosemary struggles to find her own voice when matched against Minnie’s. After all, she is her elder. And Guy seems to have taken such a liking to them! Guy also seems to catch the break of a lifetime in the most tragic stroke of non-luck. His rival for a part has gone blind suddenly. While excited to have the role, his demeanor seems different these days, as he withdraws farther and farther away from his wife. Rosemary’s sadness over this is apparent - evidently to Guy as well. For as though on cue, he sweeps upon her one morning like something out of a fairytale, exclaiming that he pledges only to be good from now on and that they should have a baby right away!
Ecstatic at his reassurance of his love for her and his newfound excitement to have a baby, Rosemary prepares for a romantic evening to christen their beginning attempts to create this child.
However, after Minnie Castevet shows up and delivers a surprise dessert, Rosemary begins to feel ill.
It’s time to drop the pretence of innocence as viewers, because if we have not caught on by now that something rotten is afoot, then what have we been doing?
Drugged, dizzy, and helpless - Rosemary is positioned by her husband (“to make you more comfortable”) on the bed. Descending deeper and deeper into her own hallucinogenic state, Rosemary succumbs to horrific dreams of anxious foreboding, sacrilegious imagery, and the forms of people she seems to know chanting around her; all culminating in her assault by some “un-human” force. She believes her Catholic upbringing to be the source of this dream’s imagery as she asks an imagined Pope she no longer believes in to forgive her for something she has no control over.
Waking the next morning, Rosemary is surprised to find scratches on her body, which Guy takes credit for because “I didn’t want to miss baby night”. Shocked, Rosemary, tries to fathom how her husband could have chosen to use her, even for something like that, without her consent. He dismisses her concerns, “I was a little loaded myself you know!”
Even though it was only a nightmare, Rosemary can’t seem to shake the bad feelings as she contemplates what has just taken place in the shower:
“She scrubbed herself vigorously, resentfully. True, he had done it for the best mostive in the world, to make a baby, and true too he had drunk as much as she had; but she wished no motive and no number of drinks could have enabled him to take her that way, taking only her body without her soul or self or she-ness - whatever it as he presumably loved.” (P. 93)
Rosemary begins to fear that perhaps her glasses have been too rosy towards her marriage and towards her husband. She considers her growing awareness of “...a disparity between what he said and what he felt. He was an actor; could anyone know when an actor was true and not acting?” (P. 93)
But what is done is done and soon after, a doctor confirms that Rosemary is indeed (joy of joys!) pregnant. Rosemary is elated and Guy, in his own excitement, can’t seem to tell Minnie and Roman the good news fast enough. The old couple arrange to have Rosemary’s pregnancy watched over by a local celebrity doctor, who of course will only give her the best care possible.
Still Rosemary is plagued by anxiety. What if something goes wrong? She lies awake at night, wondering how she can protect this new life growing inside of her.
And this passage breaks my heart.
As Rosemary lies there, considering what to do, she wishes that “prayer was still possible.” (P. 112)
It has been stated that, while having been brought up catholic, she has settled into a state of agnosticism as an adult - which has only been met by anger and distance from her own family, forcing her away from them.
And now she finds herself searching for something to cling to. Some sense of hope or security with which to ease her troubled mind. That’s when she remembers a good-luck charm that Minnie Castevet had given to her some months before. Minnie had given it to Rosemary - presumably as a gesture of thanks for being so good to them. Rosemary had stored it away due to the sour smell that emanated from what Minnie called “tannis root”, locked securely inside its metal charm.
Smell or no smell, Rosemary eagerly drapes the necklace over her shoulders, heaving a sigh of relief that she can do something - even just metaphorically - to look out for her child.
And I think to myself as I observe Rosemary… Is that not what I do? Do I not, in the absence of truth; in the seeming absence of light - reach for something to comfort me? Am I not willing to argue with myself: “It may smell of death, but surely it will give me life if I need it so badly”? Do I not cling to the sour, rotten counterfeits of peace when I have access to a true Peace that I may simply be incapable of seeing at the time?
Of course I do.
Anyway…
Rosemary’s worries are far from over.
Very different than what she had originally wanted, at the behest of her new doctor, Rosemary agrees to take no commercial pills to support her pregnancy, instead opting for a tannis-smelling drink and a small cake of mysterious ingredients prepared daily by Minnie. Sure, it’s not what she had wanted - but weren’t these people just trying to help?
Despite the constant assistance offered by her adoring neighbors, Rosemary finds herself at a surprising lack when it comes to her own husband, his career suddenly skyrocketing him into spheres of praise and possibility neither of them had expected so quickly.
And there is pain. A growing pain that starts slowly and becomes ferocious, and that (despite the constant reassurances of Dr. Saperstein) does not seem to have any intention of leaving her. She cannot eat. She cannot sleep. She can barely cope with this constant agony. Isolation building upon isolation, she ceases going out altogether.
That is until someone who loves her sees her like this and demands an explanation.
Rosemary recites her memorized excuse from Dr. Saperstein of “stiff joints”, but Hutch will have none of it. While not saying so directly, he is suspicious of her condition, suspicious of her neighbors, and suspicious of her doctor. But a sudden appearance of Guy at-home-from-work-early, a surprising telephone call from Hutch begging her to come see him, and one chilly phone booth telephone call send Rosemary’s world spinning, when she is told that Hutch has gone into a coma and the doctors have no answer for it. She begins to walk home, shocked and defeated.
“[She]...found herself looking into a window in which a small cre’che was spotlighted with exquisite porcelain figures of Mary and the Infant and Joseph, the Magi and the shepherds and the animals of the stable. She smiled at the tender scene, laden with meaning and emotion that survived her agnosticism; and then saw in the window glass, like a viel hung before the vanity, her own reflection smiling with the skeletal sheeks and black circled eyes that yesterday had alarmed Hutch and now alarmed her.” (P. 139)
And it is now that Rosemary, in the absence of her one true advocate, is truly alone.
Her condition worsens. She finds herself eating raw meat and other more upsetting cravings as time passes. Her pain increases to new unbearable levels until she can finally stand no more of the pestering and the advice from her constant chaperones at The Bramford.
In her second act of personal defiance - she refuses to submit to either pain or Minnie for another second. She is going to throw a party for people she actually enjoys and that is that. Guy, as one might expect, is less than thrilled.
And it is a shocking contrast to the life she has been living thus far. The fresh eyes of her old friends serve as a beacon of warning. Her girlfriends who have had children implore her to see another doctor, finally pointing out that any good physician would not let her suffer like this for so long.
However, her desire to get a second opinion from her original doctor is not met without intense opposition from Guy, who Rosemary fully (and literally) stands up to for the first time in her marriage. The pain has broken her beyond fear. She has nothing to lose at this point other than the baby, and Guy's usual cutting remarks do nothing to deter her passion.
Then the pain stops. Out of nowhere, it goes away as quickly as it came. For a moment, Rosemary stands in horrified terror that her baby may have just died. But… just as unexpectedly, the baby begins to kick for the very first time; and Rosemary can scarcely breathe from the joy. She thrusts Guy’s hand to her stomach, from which he snatches it away hastily, his face pale:
“It’s nothing to be afraid of. It won’t bite you” (P. 161)
The pain now gone, her confidence in her limited community has been restored, and she commits to the regiments given to her with a fastidiousness that only a new mother can conjur.
“She drank Minnie’s drink as soon as it was given to her, and drank it to the last chill drop, driving away as by a ritual, the remembered guilt of I-killed-the-baby.” (P. 163)
It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly everything comes down to guilt with Rosemary. Guilt that Guy may not enjoy himself if they go see the Castevets. Guilt that the dream-Pope may know she is being molested. Guilt that she may have been the one to do her baby harm.
If this story does not awaken a certain level of advocacy in all of us for those who live in constant and unearned guilt and a certain amount of rage towards others who would wield that guilt as a weapon, I don’t know what will.
Outside of her line of thinking, Hutch has died - slipped out of his coma and into the world beyond, and Rosemary is devastated. At his funeral, a friend of Hutch’s informs her that he awoke from his coma for just long enough before he died to implore the nurses to give Rosemary a book and tell her “the name is an anagram”.
Rosemary, of course, does not understand, but takes the book (chillingly titled All of them Witches) home to study - if only to honor her fallen friend. However, some hours and one scrabble board later, Rosemary is horrified to realize that the name of her neighbor, Roman Castevet is indeed an anagram for the name “Stephen Marcoto”, the son of a famous satanist from many years ago.
When Guy returns home, Rosemary insists that they will no longer be seeing the Castevets and that they have to leave. Guy in response, insists she is working herself up over nothing.
The following days torment Rosemary as she tries to connect all of the dots she has missed thus far. The most devastating of which is - that Guy may have been a part of some fiendish plot to abduct their baby and give it to the Castevets the whole time. She turns to Dr. Saperstein, only to find that he (no, not him too!) is part of this tannis-laden conspiracy.
In her last-ditch attempt to find safety, the nine-months-pregnant Rosemary begs Dr. Hill (her first doctor) to see her and help her. She explains the whole thing as concisely and articulately as she can, all the while, just pleading with him to hear and believe her.
And the absolute worst part of it is,
He almost does.
Until she name-drops Dr. Saperstein.
Dr. Hill’s previously curious eyes go blank as the sheer magnitude of these allegations wash over him. Not Abraham Sapertsein. Still, he appears willing to help her, allowing her a few precious moments of peace. However, in less than an hour after believing she is finally out of danger, she is sold out by the last remaining person who could have helped her, and Rosemary is taken back to The Bramford by Guy and the illustrious Abraham Saperstein.
I cannot deny that I found myself very convicted at this moment.
Is that not exactly what I have been so tempted to do over the years? Am I not guilty of closing my ears to the pleas of those I may not know in favor of the reputation of someone I wanted to believe I knew?
Would I not also have been tempted to say, “Not him. Not Ravi Zacharias. With all his work behind him. Not him…”
And I would have been so incredibly wrong.
What an idol we (I) make of reputation. And how damnable is it that we (I) overlook the needs of the mistreated and traumatized in order to do so.
All of the horror, it would seem, has been too much for poor Rosemary’s already beladen body, and after a valiant struggle to free herself from her captors, she enters labor in her own apartment and is drugged to keep quiet.
When she awakes, she is informed that the baby has died.
But Rosemary does not believe it.
If up until this point, Rosemary’s sense of self has been fading farther and farther away, it is at this moment, for the sake of her baby, that she is present again. Fully material. Real. Solid. Willing to do whatever it takes to reclaim her child.
Rosemary slips into the Castevet’s apartment, clutching a kitchen knife. Whatever she intends to do with it will have to be imagined forever, because once she enters the living room, swarming with excited guests, there is nothing she could have possibly done with it.
They have her baby in a black bassinet, beneath an upside-down crucifix acting as a sort of perverse mobile.
They seem alarmed at her presence, but do not try to stop her from seeing her baby.
But how could Rosemary’s Baby look like that?
You’ve probably guessed by now, if you didn’t know it before you started reading this, that this is the essential “spawn-of-the-devil” story. Yes, it was the devil raping Rosemary in that dream; and yes, this is the devil’s son.
Rosemary is all but totally defeated as the witches around her scream “Hail satan!”, and Roman breaks out with, “God is dead! The year is one!”
Rosemary collapses. All is lost. All is lost!
Or is it?
In one final moment, Roman quietly goes to Rosemary and tells her that she could still be in this baby’s life. They could let her raise him if she wanted. She doesn’t even have to join their way of thinking. “Just be a mother to your baby.”
And for a beat, it appears that Rosemary may not have the heart to do it.
Until one of the women starts rocking the baby too hard.
Rosemary’s anger is apparent. She confronts the woman. She gave birth to him. Of course she knows what he needs.
Roman steps in, “Rock him Rosemary.”
“You’re trying to get me to be his mother,” she whispers, desperately trying to stifle her motherly feelings.
“Aren’t you his mother?”
It is that moment that Rosemary’s decision is made. She walks to his crib and cannot help but be overwhelmed with the same love she has held for him the entire time.
And it would appear that her fate is sealed.
This is where a lot of my friends and I hit a crossroad in what we see. It may appear that Rosemary is caught in a trap. What other choice does she have? The satanists won! How is there anything redeemable in that?
Let’s zoom out for a moment and examine the exchange that just took place.
As I write this, it is Good Friday. I am actually somewhat chilled to see that it is a little after 3:00 in the afternoon.
Right now, millions of people around the world are remembering a time when the devil / satan / evil / whatever-you-want-to-call it screamed “God is Dead!”
But in the background, behind stone walls, a sacrifice was being made and a victory was approaching that said otherwise.
A world, given over to the depravity of the devil looks up, only to find that there is a God who loves them.
A traumatized mother walked towards the literal spawn of satan, only to find that she loved him.
Roman claims that God is dead, while simultaneously asking Rosemary to behave as though He were not.
He needs her to walk in love, which they do not have.
He asks her to live out forgiveness, which they do not offer.
He requires her to be sacrificial, of which they know nothing.
They don’t understand what it would mean for God to be dead, because if He were, they would not be able to bask in their own celebration while a quiet woman takes up the mantle of Christ-like-ness in the very same room.
We may feel sometimes, like we are lost to the devil. Whatever that means to you: Lost in our sin. Our selfishness Our depression. Our addiction. Our illness. Our depravity. Stuck in our destructive choices, we may seem to be following in the devil’s footsteps.
Why must we always forget that we are made in the Image of God?
Reed Lackey so astutely pointed out in our conversation - satan may be his father, but this is Rosemary’s Baby.
I usually watch this movie pretending I’m Rosemary and asking What would I do in her situation?
But I think I’ve realized only as I’m writing this that What we are is the baby. Made in the image of the Immeasurably Good. But also marbled with streaks of our own selfishness.
Rosemary ponders to herself, as she watches her son in the crib, what she can do to help him be good. To not turn out the way these evil people want him to - regardless of who his father is. “...he’s half devil, but half me after all!”
The question then becomes, as we remember a God who did not stay dead, and remember a mother who adored Him. As we marvel at this amazing capacity to choose that we have been gifted with.
Created by Good; born into sin:
What will we do?
