The Year Is One

“The Year Is One” is a phrase that first reaches Rosemary Woodhouse as an obscure toast at a New Year’s Eve gathering, then returns at the novel’s climax as Roman Castevet’s declaration of a new era devoted to Satan. The change in setting and force turns a line Rosemary had barely noticed into the coven’s announced account of the world it intends to inaugurate.

First Use as a Toast

During the holiday season, Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse often visited Minnie Castevet and Roman Castevet’s apartment, where they met a group of older acquaintances. The gatherings had the surface of neighborly sociability: Roman hosted energetically, filling glasses and starting conversations, while Guy was a favorite of the women. Rosemary and Guy usually left early, and Guy saw her to bed before returning to the party.

On New Year’s Eve, Roman proposed, “To 1966, The Year One”. The words puzzled Rosemary, but everyone else seemed to understand and approve. She supposed she had missed a literary or political reference and did not care enough to ask. That mismatch—her indifference against the group’s shared recognition—makes the toast a quiet sign of an allegiance she has not yet understood.

The Phrase Returns as a Proclamation

The phrase recurs in a radically changed scene. After Rosemary has entered the Castevets’ apartment through the concealed passage from her linen closet, she finds the coven gathered around the black bassinet. Roman tells her that God is dead. When Rosemary cries out to God, he raises his voice into a declaration: “God is dead and Satan lives! The year is One, the first year of our Lord! The year is One, God is done! The year is One, Adrian’s begun!” The coven answers with cries of “Hail Satan!” and “Hail Adrian!”

The return clarifies what the earlier toast concealed. Roman’s words define “One” not as a casual name for the calendar year but as the beginning of a new order: God’s reign is declared finished, Satan’s life and power affirmed, and Adrian’s beginning placed at the center of the claim. The first toast’s approving audience is thus retrospectively recast as a group already sharing the phrase’s meaning.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The phrase changes force through repetition. At the party, it is brief and unexplained, and Rosemary’s failure to recognize its significance keeps her outside the group’s understanding. At the climax, Roman expands it into a rhythmic declaration, repeating the year’s new status and spelling out its religious meaning. What had sounded like an allusion becomes an act of naming and allegiance, answered collectively by the coven.

That transformation also sharpens the contrast between public normality and concealed purpose. The first use takes place amid drinks and conversation; the second accompanies Rosemary’s discovery of the child in the black bassinet and the coven’s open celebration. The phrase links those scenes without making Rosemary’s early confusion a full understanding: its significance becomes legible only when the Castevets abandon the appearance of an ordinary social circle and state their creed aloud.