Maternal Love and Motherhood

Maternal love and motherhood in the novel are neither a simple fulfillment of Rosemary Woodhouse’s wish for a family nor a role freely granted to her. Rosemary wants children, but other people repeatedly claim authority over when and how she becomes a mother, how her pregnancy is treated, and even what her child will be called. The ending turns motherhood into an act of care and resistance: knowing that her son’s father is Satan and that those around her have deceived her, she chooses not to harm the child and insists that he is hers to name and nurture.

Desire and the Terms of Motherhood

At twenty-four, Rosemary imagines a family of three children, spaced two years apart. Guy Woodhouse says he is not ready, and she fears that he will continue to delay until success makes him feel secure. She hopes to become pregnant by accident, telling Guy that birth-control pills give her headaches and that contraceptive devices repel her. Guy interprets her reluctance to use contraception as evidence that she remains a good Catholic, while he studies the calendar and avoids her fertile days. Rosemary tells him that a particular day is safe; when her period comes, she experiences the outcome as another monthly loss in a private contest Guy does not know they are having.

This early conflict establishes that her wish for motherhood is real, but that the couple does not share equal control over its timing. Rosemary’s desire is practical and specific: she hopes for children and believes Guy is already handsome and talented enough to succeed. His postponement frustrates her, while her plan to conceive without openly challenging him shows how little room she feels she has to secure the future she wants. Later, as her pregnancy becomes frightening and painful, her desire for a child remains visible in her plea that they have to make a baby, even as the circumstances of conception and care become increasingly coercive.

Pregnancy, Pain, and Lost Authority

Once pregnant, Rosemary experiences pain that her friends regard as a warning. Elise asks whether Abraham Sapirstein is giving her medicine or other treatment; Rosemary answers that he is doing nothing. Her friends urge her to seek another opinion from Dr. Hill, arguing that she should not be left to suffer. Rosemary initially defends Sapirstein’s reputation, but eventually tells Guy that she intends to see Dr. Hill because she fears Sapirstein is either lying or dangerously mistaken. Her decision is a concrete attempt to reclaim judgment over her own pregnancy.

The friends’ concern does not mean that Rosemary wants to end the pregnancy. When they raise the possibility of seeing another doctor, she firmly says she will not have an abortion; they clarify that they are asking her only to seek another examination. She also recalls Sapirstein’s prediction that her friends would think their pregnancies were normal while hers was not. The contrast matters: Rosemary wants the child, but she does not accept that wanting motherhood requires accepting unexplained pain or unquestioned medical authority.

Her opportunity to choose where and how to give birth is then taken away. Instead of reaching Doctors Hospital, with its equipment, nurses, and sterile facilities, Rosemary finds herself confronted by Guy, Mr. Fountain, Sapirstein, Dr. Shand, Mrs. Fountain, and Mrs. Gilmore. They assure her that they are her friends and that she is safe, while Sapirstein presents an injection as a mild sedative. Rosemary resists, striking at Guy with a telephone receiver and trying to call for help. When a contraction reveals that labor has begun, the group restrains her and Sapirstein gives her an injection. The scene places reassuring language beside actions that deny her consent, choice of setting, and control over her body.

The Child and the Choice Not to Harm Him

After discovering that the baby is alive, Rosemary briefly thinks that she should kill him and herself, imagining the public horror of a mother killing her baby at the Bramford. She also imagines that such an act might save the world from what the child could become. The thought is a response to what she believes about his father and to the coven’s deception; it is not the final decision. Looking at the baby, she remembers how dear he seemed before he opened his yellow eyes, and she acknowledges that he is her child regardless of who fathered him.

Rosemary turns to the possibility of asking a priest for help, imagining the Church and the Pope as authorities capable of handling a problem she feels unqualified to face. Yet her moral decision does not depend on receiving that help. She concludes that killing is wrong and chooses to protect the infant. When she speaks to him, she separates him from the adults who tricked and lied to her: her anger is directed at them, she tells him, not at him. Her tenderness does not erase her fear or her knowledge of the danger; it prevents those things from becoming a reason to punish the child.

Care, Naming, and Maternal Claim

Her first acts of care are physical and attentive. Rosemary loosens the baby’s gown and blanket when she notices they are too tight, and reassures him that she will not hurt him. She describes the white-and-yellow wallpaper and white crib in his own room, and tells him that the milk he has been drinking comes from mothers and that she is his mother. The exchange makes motherhood more than a biological fact: she presents it as the daily work of feeding, noticing discomfort, and making a place where the child can be cared for. When the assembled onlookers gather to watch, she turns back to tucking him in and says that they can remain comfortable together despite the audience.

The naming dispute makes her claim explicit. Roman Castevet calls the baby Adrian Steven, but Rosemary looks up from the bassinet and names him Andrew John Woodhouse. She acknowledges Roman’s preference, then refuses it: the child is hers, and this is not a point she will debate. She also rejects the expectation that he must wear black all the time. Roman insists on his chosen name, but Minnie Castevet answers with Andrew, and others follow her lead. Rosemary’s authority is limited by the people surrounding her, yet she establishes a boundary they cannot wholly erase.

The final image keeps fear and affection in the same frame. Rosemary tickles the baby’s stomach, addresses him as Andy, and tries to coax a smile, while the group’s acclamations and a photographer’s rapid pictures make the moment a public spectacle. She has not ceased to recognize the danger represented by the child’s yellow eyes or the people claiming him for their purposes. Still, she chooses to treat him as a particular, vulnerable baby rather than as a symbol or weapon. Motherhood ends not in certainty about what Andrew will become, but in Rosemary’s insistence that he is her child and her responsibility.