Female Body

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Terry having died without children. By making Rosemary and Terry seemingly adhere to those binaries, the film comfortably and cleanly removes Terry without compromising Rosemary’s virtue. Nonetheless, as Rich (1976) emphasizes, these duality has “nothing to do with women’s actual sensuality and everything to do with the male’s subjective experience of the woman” (pg. 34). It is only when the pure and impure amalgamate within one woman that these patriarchal notions start to collapse—something men will perceive as a threat. One way in which the amalgamation manifests is in pregnancy.

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Despite being groomed by the Castevets as a vessel for Adrian, Terry is killed off when Satan chooses Rosemary. In doing so, the pure woman is elevated above the impure woman. As theorized by Adrienne Rich (1976) in her book Of Woman Born, “masculine imagination has had to divide women to see [them], and force [them] to see [themselves], as polarized into good or evil, fertile or barren, pure or impure” (pg. 34)

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ed counterpart. Terry has the darker features of an Italian-American, which are meant to juxtapose Rosemary’s “pure,” white complexion. She is a recovering drug addict, having “contaminated” her body with substances. She also admits that she thought the Castevets took her in to do “some kind of s*x thing,” demonstrating a sense of indifference towards maintaining her body’s “integrity” (0:14:46).

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er and thinner than her husband, a visual indication of her submission. She dresses in feminine and modest clothing that gives off the impression of chastity. Even when she instigates s*x, it is proper, being only with her husband, and tied to the celebration of an upgraded domestic lifestyle. We see her decorate her house in the plain, pastel style that she decorates herself; Rosemary bounds her own bod

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A woman’s body is a site of both sanctity and disgust. She is expected to embody the aesthetic of clean and polished domesticity, which in turn, domesticizes her. Yet, her body is also the breeding ground of s*xual desires and moral misgivings that can contaminate her. This doublethink of womanhood is further exasperated when a woman undergoes pregnancy. In Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary Woodhouse dresses and acts in a way that establis

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22/04/2022

Rosemary’s purity is reflected by her body as positioned within the domestic space. In the opening, we see her as visibly smaller and thinner than her husband, a visual indication of her submission. She dresses in feminine and modest clothing that gives off the impression of chastity. Even when she instigates s*x, it is proper, being only with her husband, and tied to the celebration of an upgraded domestic lifestyle. We see her decorate her house in the plain, pastel style that she decorates herself; Rosemary bounds her own body to the domestic aesthetic (Polanski, Castle, Farrow, Cassavetes, Gordon, Blackmer, & Evans, 2006, 0:12:23).

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This essay looks at the tension separating these two imagined selves within womanhood and motherhood in Rosemary’s Baby, and possible unification. It also considers this tension in the context of Rosemary’s race and class in comparison to mothers in different socioeconomic situations also struggling for bodily understanding and autonomy.

22/04/2022

In Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary Woodhouse dresses and acts in a way that establishes her as the complacent and naive ideal of 1960s housewifery. However, her pregnancy changes her body to one of perceived horror and defect. Much of the exposition of the film reveals Rosemary’s underlying anxieties about losing her purity. Her fear is informed by the patriarchal structures that deny any reconciliation between the sacredness and corruption of pregnancy, as well as between “pure” and “impure” femininity.

22/04/2022

A woman’s body is a site of both sanctity and disgust. She is expected to embody the aesthetic of clean and polished domesticity, which in turn, domesticizes her. Yet, her body is also the breeding ground of s*xual desires and moral misgivings that can contaminate her. This doublethink of womanhood is further exasperated when a woman undergoes pregnancy.

22/04/2022

This paper explores the woman’s body as a site of sanctity and disgust in the film Rosemary’s Baby. The character of Rosemary Woodhouse is depicted as a pure, virtuous, and feminine figure. She is positioned against other corrupted, sinful women, which reinforces a binary of womanhood. When Rosemary is s*xually violated, her sanctity is vandalized. Her subsequent pregnancy introduces a new dimension to the binary: that between sacred motherhood and “disgusting” pregnancy experiences. Rosemary struggles to reconcile her ideals of purity with the horrific transformation her body undergoes. This paper identifies the binary as patriarchal mythology; only when Rosemary accepts motherhood as an amalgamation of sanctity and disgust does she reclaim her autonomy. Nonetheless, not all women are able to replicate Rosemary’s evolution in overcoming doublethink. While she is supported by her privilege, mothers on the margins of society remain oppressed under the binary structure.