Salome

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1891

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 1-25

Pages 26-66

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Danger of the Gaze

Salomé explores the idea that visual spectacle can be a dangerous thing due to its links to desire and sexual attraction. Throughout the play, many characters caution one another not to look at other people. Being exposed to the gaze of another is dangerous, yet also empowering. This contrast between the vulnerability of being a spectacle and the power inherent in inspiring desire suggests that beauty can disrupt hierarchies.

Throughout the play, many characters are forbidden from looking at one another, signifying the risk of aesthetic qualities inspiring sexual desire. The Page of Herodias repeatedly tells his friend, the Young Syrian, not to look at Salomé, warning him “you must not look at her… something terrible may happen” (7) and “do not look at her. I pray you not to look at her” (9). The Page’s warnings turn out to be warranted, as the Young Syrian’s desire for Salomé eventually leads him to die by suicide. In contrast, Herodias repeatedly warns Herod not to look at Salomé because she is protective of her own marriage and her daughter’s virginity. Unlike the Page of Herodias, who wanted to protect his friend from heartbreak, Herodias’s critique of Herod’s gaze is a way to restrict his sexuality to the bounds of their marriage. She commands him “you must not look at her! You are always looking at her” (27). Similarly, Jokanaan condemns Herodias for her visual desire, asking “Where is she who having seen the images of men painted on the walls, the images of the Chaldeans limmed in colours, gave herself up unto the lust of her eyes, and sent ambassadors into Chaldea?” (17). According to Jokanaan, Herodias’s lustful gaze also has strayed from beyond the bounds of her marriage, influencing her political decisions.

Initially, Salomé is not permitted to look at Jokanaan, who is imprisoned in a dark cistern. The limitation of her sight is ironically what tempts her to engage with the prophet. When she looks into the cistern, she remarks “how black it is down there! It must be terrible to be in so black a pit! It is like a tomb” (14). She commands the soldiers to bring him out, claiming “I wish to see him” (14). This interaction suggests that restricting sight can cause the same problems that too much looking causes—inspiring curiosity that mimics and eventually becomes desire. Unlike the other characters, who are forbidden from looking by their friends or spouses, Salomé’s gaze is challenged by the person she is looking at. Jokanaan asks when he emerges from the cistern, “who is this woman who is looking at me?” before immediately saying “I will not have her look at me” (19). Jokanaan does not intentionally exploit Salomé’s desire for him, instead seeking to hide himself from her by returning to the cistern. Yet denying her access to his beauty is not enough. Salomé’s desire to see him and be seen by him reflects her desire for sexual intimacy, causing her to have his head removed and brought to her so that she can satisfy her need to see him again.

After tragic events occur throughout the play, the characters blame sight and seek to hide themselves to avoid a similar fate. When the Young Syrian dies by suicide, his friend the Page of Herodias cries out, “why did I not hide him from the moon? If I had hidden him in a cavern she would not have seen him” (24). The Page of Herodias superstitiously ascribes his friend’s death to the influence of the strange moon, which the Young Syrian previously compared to Salomé. This moment suggests that there has been a hazardous reversal in the power dynamic between voyeur and spectacle; the moon is not just there to be watched and admired, it watches back. Metaphorically, the Page of Herodias’s statement suggests that if the Young Syrian had not had the chance to interact with Salomé and have his desire for her manipulated, he might not have died by suicide due to his unreciprocated lust.

While Salomé willingly makes herself into a sexual spectacle for Herod in order to gain temporary power over him, her beauty invites more danger than it does opportunity in the end. Herod confesses to her, “It is true, I have looked at you all this evening. Your beauty troubled me. Your beauty has grievously troubled me, and I have looked at you too much. But I will look at you no more” (57). While Herod has previously been a lover of beauty, enjoying aesthetic pleasures such as gems, exotic birds, and fine fabrics, he ends the play terrified by the idea that he too might be seen. While Herod is comfortable in his role as the watcher, the moment that he realizes he might also be seen disturbs him. He leaves the terrace calling out, “put out the torches! Hide the moon! Hide the stars! Let us hide ourselves in our palace, Herodias. I begin to be afraid” (65-66). Herod’s final line is delivered as he exits the stage, as he sees Salomé kiss Jokanaan’s head. He orders his soldiers to kill her, indicating that her beauty is no longer a source of power for her, and in fact being watched opens her up to danger as her unusual sexual desires are revealed to others.

The uncomfortable reversals in the dynamics of sight allow Wilde to play with the idea of spectacle in the visual medium of a play. While the characters on stage watch each other and sometimes fear that God or other cosmic forces are watching them, they are also being literally watched by the audience. The audience is therefore also linked to the dangerous visual relationships portrayed in the play. They seem to have power, being able to witness the characters without being perceived themselves, but the beauty of the actors on the stage might also prove to be a temptation. By engaging the audience in this network of visual appreciation, Wilde breaks down the barriers between the narrative and reality.

The Similarity of Beauty and Horror

Beauty and horror share similar aesthetic qualities in Salomé, suggesting that they are not opposites. Wilde’s interest in aestheticism as an artistic philosophy impacts his portrayal of visual symbols in the play. Rather than ascribe inherently beautiful or inherently ugly qualities to physical characteristics, the characters find such characteristics either beautiful or horrific depending on perspective. Thus, Wilde suggests that desire is not a universal experience and that there are forms of sensory beauty that might appear disgusting to others depending on their perspective. This contributes to a subtextual queer reading of the play, wherein Wilde seeks to question why some forms of desire for beauty are seen as monstrous while others are considered acceptable in society.

The first lines in the play set up the dichotomy between beauty and horror. The Page of Herodias, upon looking at the moon, claims that the moons “is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. You would fancy she was looking for dead things” (1). However, his friend the Young Syrian sees the moon entirely differently, stating that the moon “is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. You would fancy she was dancing” (1). The contrast between a dead woman and a dancing princess exemplify the aesthetic contrast that will define the rest of the play. The Page of Herodias fears the moon, considering it to be an omen of death, while the Young Syrian views the moon as a reminder of Salomé, whom he desires.

Salomé’s conversation with Jokanaan best reflects this idea that beauty and horror are similar in their dependance on perspective. As Salomé confesses that she is attracted to Jokanaan, she compares the parts of his body to other objects traditionally considered to be beautiful. For example, she praises his body by saying “Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains, like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body” (21). Her description invokes imagery that denotes purity, delicacy, and natural beauty. However, once Jokanaan rejects her praise, she immediately describes his body using disgusting and horrific metaphors: “Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things” (21-22). The whiteness of Jokanaan’s body now signifies illness, corruption, and death rather than beauty. While Salomé focuses on the same element, Jokanaan’s pale skin, she sees it as horrible rather than attractive because he has rejected her compliment. Similarly, Salomé initially describes Jokanaan’s black hair as “like clusters of grapes, the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites” (22). However, when he rejects her again, she calls his hair “a knot of black serpents writhing round thy neck” (22). While the object visual qualities of Jokanaan’s hair—its dark color and longer length—remain the same in both descriptions, Salomé’s desire for his hair is informed by her emotional state.

At the ending of the play, Herod orders Salomé to be killed because her desire appears disturbing and horrific to him. Salomé’s first request for a silver charger tricks Herod into believing she wants a beautiful gift, as the fine silver vessel notes traditional beauty. When she instead asks for Jokanaan’s head, he seeks to tempt her with gifts that have more normative aesthetic appeal, such as jewels and fine garments. Salomé tells him “It is for mine own pleasure that I ask the head of Jokanaan in a silver charger” (55). Herod, however, denies the possibility that a severed head could be beautiful to her, asking, “What pleasure could you have in it? None. No, no, it is not what you desire” (57). Salomé’s final act of kissing the head combines an act of sexual love with a horrific aesthetic, showing that she desires something that no one else would consider beautiful. Yet, by asking that the head be brought to her on fine silver, she hints that she does see Jokanaan’s dead body as still beautiful.

Herod orders his soldiers to crush her to death, a detail that does not appear in the biblical or historical sources. Wilde’s invention of Salomé’s death suggests that society will always violently contain desire that strays outside of the normative bounds of beauty. The court tolerates Herod’s similarly inappropriate lust for his own stepdaughter because Salomé’s traditional feminine beauty is comprehensible. Immoral desire is acceptable when that desire is for something that society deems beautiful, while desire for horrific aesthetics is harshly restricted. Through this, Wilde hints that it is personal taste in aesthetics rather than true virtue that guides what society deems a normal form of sexuality.

Sight and Comprehending God

While sight linked to sexual desire causes tragedy and horror in Salomé, Wilde also portrays another form of sight—the perception of divinity. Jokanaan’s status as a prophet is framed with visual rhetoric, suggesting that he is one of the few people who is capable of “seeing” God. Because Jokanaan is not motivated by any form of visual desire, he is better able to perceive divinity. The discourse between the religious groups at Herod’s court suggests that faith requires one to believe in something unseen, yet through the Word of God, divinity does become perceptible.

At the beginning of the play, several different cultural groups from Herod’s court discuss the notion that in Abrahamic faith traditions, God does not physically appear before His followers. One of the servants, a Cappadocian pagan, describes his gods as physical, visible beings, saying that “in my country there are no gods left. The Romans have driven them out. There are some who say that they have hidden themselves in the mountains, but I do not believe it. Three nights I have been on the mountains seeking them everywhere. I did not find them. And at last I called them by their names, and they did not come. I think they are dead” (5). Because he cannot see the gods or find them taking shelter in the mountains, the Cappadocian assumes that his gods have died. Meanwhile, one of Herod’s soldiers points out that “the Jews worship a God that you cannot see…in fact, they only believe in things that you cannot see” (5). By drawing attention to the novelty of an unseen God, Wilde calls attention to how Abrahamic faiths put much less emphasis on visual depictions of divinity and far more value on words and written texts.

The debate between the Jews at Herod’s court suggests the theological problem posed by an invisible God. When Herod claims that Jokanaan, as a holy man, has “seen God” (34), one of the Jews in his court objects, claiming that the prophet Elias was the only man who has ever seen God and that “in these days God doth not show Himself. He hideth Himself. Therefore great evils have come upon the land” (34). However, this perspective sparks a theological debate. Another Jew argues that Elias did not see God at all, but rather “the shadow of God” (34) because God is inherently unknowable to mankind. This perspective is countered by a Jew who suggests that “God is at no time hidden. He showeth Himself at all times and in everything. God is in what is evil even as He is in what is good” (34). The other Jews reject this doctrine as perverted by Greek philosophy and dismiss it, dissolving the debate into a rejection of all knowledge. This debate between the Jews over the possibility of seeing and understanding God exemplifies the problem of visibility: if God can be seen in the physical world, then God might have some of the evil and corrupt qualities that materiality invites. Like Jokanaan, a holy man whose body nevertheless inspires unchaste passions, God’s physical appearance could allow for unvirtuous visual desire.

Jokanaan’s actions throughout the play suggest that understanding divinity is better framed as “listening” rather than “seeing.” Words, rather than appearances, form the basis of his preaching. For most of the play, he remains unseen and off-stage, calling out from his prison. The disembodied voice suggests that Christian truth is better understood through words. When it is mixed with visuals, such as when he appears before Salomé, she is too distracted by his body to comprehend his religious message to her. Sound also conveys the presence of an angel, the angel of death whose wingbeats are heard by Herod after the Young Syrian’s death.

Salomé’s final speech to Jokanaan’s head turns sight into a metaphorical rather than literal method for knowledge. While Jokanaan is not blind and his eyes are functional, Salomé tells him that “thou hast seen thy God, Jokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou wouldst have loved me. I, I saw thee, Jokanaan, and I loved thee” (64). This line conveys that while Jokanaan might not have literally “seen” God, as the Jews were debating, he has seen God in the sense that he understood spiritual truths, and therefore the material world no longer had the power to tempt him with desire. While he obviously noticed Salomé’s presence, even commenting on her golden eyes, he felt no love for her as she did for him. Thus, Wilde suggests that sight is the manner through which one comes to love. Jokanaan’s love is fixed upon God, thereby making him immune to love of the flesh. Salomé’s love, however, is so dependent on the sight of her physical eyes that she transfers his lust from a living man onto his corpse.