Rosmersholm

Rosmersholm brings a unique characteristic to the theatrical world. The play has the ability to take on two different meanings that the audience gets to decide. The whole production is centered on the death/suicide of John Rosmer’s wife Beata. The conflict that the audience deals with is throughout the performance evidence Beata’s suicide is presented but it can also be used as clues to connect a character on the stage with her murder.

Through my own interpretation of the play I believe that Mr. Rosmer murdered his wife and left calculated clues to make it appear to be a suicide. I think that it was a combination of the idea of being with Ms. West and his desire to start life fresh that drove him to push her from the footbridge into the millrace. New ideas, new personal faith, and a need to go out with the old and in with the new are key motives for Beata to be murdered by her husband. Yet, it is possible that Mrs. Rosmer never actually jumped from the millrace because nowhere in the play does it mention someone seeing her fall or her body ever being discovered. Lastly, I believe that in the final scence when Mrs. Helseth looks out the window and see Mr. Rosmer and Ms. West jumping from the footbridge into the millrace she claims that the “dead wife-she has taken them.” I do not see this as a physical pulling into the water by Beata but a self-conviction by John Rosmer admitting his guilt for having murdered Beata. The final combination of denial, purposeful diabolical bits of evidence to clear his name, and his desire to keep religion at an arms length can only be solved through Mr. Rosmer’s jumping into the river to cleanse his sins.