53 pages • 1 hour read
Silvia Moreno-GarciaThe Seventh Veil of Salome
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Consequences of Women’s Ambition and Desire
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and graphic violence.
All of the female characters depicted in the novel are full of ambitions and desires: None of them are content with the fairly circumscribed roles readily available to them. However, both storylines depict tragic consequences when women aspire to determine their own fates. That this is true at two very different moments in history suggests the continuity of the struggles women experience when trying to pursue what they want, whether that is power, influence, fame, or love.
All three of the novel’s major female characters, as well as Salome’s mother, Herodias, reject the marriages of convenience that society dictates they pursue. Nancy and Vera both extricate themselves from romantic relationships because they feel bored and dissatisfied: Nancy briefly attempts to embody the idealized housewife but finds that she “[is] dissatisfied in their little house with their multitude of appliances [while] she [has] put her head down, completed her chores, cooked the meals, and smiled” (58). Vera explains that she broke off her engagement to a man in Mexico because “he kissed [her] goodbye. And [she] realized [she] felt nothing at all” (177). Likewise, Vera explains to Jay, “I want to be free to make choices” (298), refusing to be confined by the social expectations her family imposes. Nancy and Vera refuse to settle for the life of domesticity that was considered the optimal life path for women in 1950s America; instead, they pursue dreams of Hollywood stardom and, in Vera’s case, genuine passion in her relationship with Jay. Salome and Herodias make even more radical choices based on their desires: Herodias abandons her husband to remarry her brother-in-law, while Salome is (at least initially) disinterested in strategic matches to men like Marcellus or Agrippa because she burns with passion for Jokanaan.
However, Moreno-Garcia suggests that women risking everything to fulfill their desires can also be ruthless and reckless in pursuit of their ambitions. Herodias destroys her reputation and creates a political crisis by marrying Herod, while Salome considers risking everything to run away with Jokanaan, both of which reveal the steep personal cost women pay when they pursue their goals.
Moreover, the pursuit of a goal does not guarantee success, particularly for women in patriarchal societies, and Moreno-Garcia suggests that it is the thwarting of desire that has the most devastating consequences. Driven partly by her belief that she will finally earn her father’s approval if she becomes a star, Nancy is desperate to achieve fame and influence, and this ambition becomes perverted into obsession and jealousy when she can’t achieve her goals through persistence and hard work. Likewise, Salome becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming queen in her own right and honoring her father’s legacy, particularly when she realizes she can’t have love. All of these thwarted desires lead to violence and tragedy: Jay and Jokanaan die, and neither Nancy nor Vera achieve the stardom they aspire to. Salome does become a queen, but she is haunted by longing for Jokanaan, suggesting the impossibility, for a woman, of satisfying both personal and political aims. Even at two very different moments in time, women’s desire and ambitions appear doomed to go unfulfilled, engendering tragic consequences.
Fated Love Despite Obstacles
The novel depicts three pairs of lovers pursuing relationships despite significant obstacles, revealing that individuals can be compelled by forces greater than themselves. At the start of the novel, Joe Kantor muses on the nature of tragedy: “[H]ow do you tell a tragedy, anyway?” (4). Framing the film, and by extension the novel describing the film, as tragedy invokes a set of generic conventions in which characters are often subject to a tragic destiny or fate over which they have little or no control. More specifically, the novel harkens to a tradition in which an encounter between doomed lovers sets a tragic fate in motion—most notably, Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, where Salome’s first glimpse of Jokanaan triggers an obsessive and ultimately fatal passion. Something similar occurs in The Seventh Veil of Salome, but Moreno-Garcia makes Salome’s thwarted passion one of many, thus suggesting the power of love itself: Despite witnessing firsthand multiple examples of love failing to prevail or even wreaking havoc, the characters have little choice but to heed its dictates when they themselves fall in love.
In the Herodian dynasty, political marriages are the norm, so love is doomed—or at least dangerous—almost by necessity. This is established from the outset: Before the main events of the plot begin, Herodias and her brother-in-law, Herod, left their respective spouses to be together, driven by “a boundless passion” (7). In doing so, they risked their political status and caused significant strife and danger; as a woman, Herodias also lost her reputation and has been branded as lascivious. Herod and Herodias do manage to enjoy a somewhat successful relationship, but they are haunted by shame and fear they may have made a mistake. Salome is less fortunate when overwhelmed by a doomed passion. When she first locks eyes with Jokanaan, “her chest [is] cut from chin to navel and her heart [is] plucked from her body […] it [is] a flaming arrow, his gaze” (11). Their passion is later described as “love that boiled, that cleaved, that annihilated” (52). The violence of the language implies both the power of the feeling and its inevitable destructiveness, foreshadowing Salome’s part in Jokanaan’s eventual death and the guilt and regret implied to follow her into her queenship.
Vera’s love for Jay is not as blatantly doomed as the love between Salome and Jokanaan. While the cultural and economic differences between Vera and Jay certainly pose barriers to their relationship, it is implied that they could have built a life together had Jay not been murdered. However, the parallels to the story of Salome and the use of foreshadowing imbue this plotline too with a sense of fate. Vera and Jay fall in love and pursue a future together despite significant obstacles, but they are just as vulnerable to sudden and shocking events. All of these plotlines reveal that characters do not truly have agency, either over who they love or over the choices they make in the face of that love.
The Dangers of Jealousy
The central conflicts in both storylines are driven by a jealous rival plotting to usurp someone who holds a position that they covet. Nancy is furious when Vera is cast as Salome, a role that has the potential to launch a significant career for the right actress. Likewise, Agrippa becomes obsessed with the idea of securing the power and throne that his uncle holds. Both Agrippa and Nancy are willing to kill to achieve their goals: Agrippa believes that if Jokanaan is executed, he can manipulate the ensuing political chaos to his advantage, while Nancy comes to the irrational conclusion that, if Vera cannot complete filming, the role will be recast and go to her. These beliefs lead to the violent deaths of Jokanaan and Jay, suggesting the destructiveness of jealousy itself.
Part of what makes jealousy dangerous, the novel implies, is the sense of entitlement that often underpins it. Nancy and Agrippa are both somewhat arrogant and believe they deserve a position held by someone else. Agrippa envisions himself as a powerful king and thinks he can more successfully navigate the complex machinations of alliance with Rome than Herod. Nancy, meanwhile, feels that “it should have been her movie and her first major role. She was Salome! Beautiful, cruel, ruinous Salome” (101). Nancy identifies with the character of Salome, but she also feels ashamed of the violent and volatile tendencies that underpin that identification, as they don’t conform to social expectations of femininity. Being cast as Salome would therefore be a kind of validation or even redemption of those parts of herself, so the loss of the role feels deeply personal.
Further personalizing matters, both Nancy and Agrippa’s feelings of jealousy are rooted in their childhood experiences and relationships with their fathers. Nancy’s father dreamed of stardom for his daughter and blames Nancy for not having succeeded; she is determined to prove him wrong and knows she has limited time to do so before her youth and beauty fade. Agrippa argues to Salome, “[W]e can restore our fractured lands into a single kingdom” (184), alluding to the tragic fates of both their fathers to inveigle her into desiring revenge against Herod. The weight of family legacy lends additional force (and apparent legitimacy) to both characters’ desires, rendering them all the more dangerous.
While Nancy and Agrippa aspire to similar goals, one succeeds and the other does not. While the plot doesn’t clarify precisely what happens after Jokanaan is executed, the final vision of Salome on a throne implies that she and Agrippa did eventually achieve power. Nancy’s scheme, however, fails tragically: Benny not only shoots the wrong person but ends up caught and convicted, while Nancy fails to parlay her infamy into stardom. The mixed outcomes reveal that actions driven by jealousy tend to be risky. Nancy and Agrippa are determined to rise above what life has handed to them, even at the cost of others’ lives, but attempts to do so can just as easily backfire as succeed.
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By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
