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Summary and Analysis of Section I (to the entrance of Salome)
The Young Syrian, the Page of Heroidias, and some soldiers are gathered on a balcony at King Herod's palace, overlooking a walled cistern (a well). Offstage, Herod is conducting a banquet with many international guests. Among the soldiers on the balcony, two conversations take place: one between the Young Syrian and the Page of Herodias, and the other between the remaining four men. These conversations alternate but do not intersect. The Young Syrian and the Page discuss the moon and the Princess Salome, comparing each to the other in terms of their beauty, femininity, and strangeness. The Page implores the Young Syrian not to "look at her too much ... Something terrible might happen"--a warning that the Syrian appears to ignore. Meanwhile, two soliders, referred to only as the "first" and "second" soldier, discuss a group of Jews in Herod's court, who are loudly "disputing their religion." They become anxious that the Tetrarch is "sombre" because he is looking at someone, and they try to determine who it is. They are soon joined by a Cappadocian and a Nubian, who point out that Herod's wife, Herodias, is pouring her husband a cup of wine. They comment on the Tetrarch's love of wine, which he imports from Samothrace, Cyprus, and Sicily in colors of purple, gold, and blood red. The soldiers move on to discuss their different religions. The Nubian reveals that his people worship "harsh" gods that have to be placated with blood sacrifices, and the Cappadocian describes how his own countrymen have come to believe that their own gods are hiding or dead. The First Soldier explains that "the Jews worship a God that one cannot see ... in fact, they only believe in things that one cannot see." These conversations are interrupted by an offstage voice that shouts a prophecy about the Messiah and the heavenly kingdom that awaits his followers upon his return. The Second Soldier is annoyed by the shouting, but the First Soldier explains that the voice is that of Iokanaan, a gentle prophet whom Herod captured in the desert alongside his sizable following of disciples. The Cappadocian asks to see the prophet, but the First Soldier explains that Herod has forbid anyone from visiting or even looking at his prisoner. The Cappadocian comments on Iokanaan's imprisonment in the palace cistern, which he senses must be dangerous. The Second Soldier responds that Herodias's first husband, Herod's brother, had been held in the same cistern for twelve years, and eventually he had to be strangled. The Young Syrian announces that Salome is approaching the balcony with a troubled expression. Though the Page again reminds his friend to avoid looking at Salome directly, the Young Syrian continues to wax poetic about the beautiful princess. AnalysisThe play's introductory action establishes several of Wilde's major themes while explicitly foreshadowing the murder of Iokanaan. Interestingly, none of the royal characters are introduced to the audience immediately, and even Iokanaan is present only as a disembodied, offstage voice. Rather, it is through the soldiers' conversations about Salome, Herod, Herodias, and Iokanaan that the audience learns about these figures and the (largely negative) relationships among them. The two distinct dialogues that comprise the play's introductory action, the conversation between the Page of Herodias and the Young Syrian, and the one between the remaining soldiers on stage, alternate but never overlap, giving the audience a sense of the lively and populous atmosphere of Herod's court. Moreover, the two dialogues serve two different functions in terms of presenting the main characters and dramatic action to the audience. Historical and political background about the dramatic action is revealed through the dialogue between the First and Second Soldiers. For example, Herod is the brother of Herodias' first husband, whom he imprisoned and eventually strangled; Iokanaan is a prophet with a large following whom Herod's army captured in the desert; and Herod's kingdom comprises many people of different religious beliefs which are often strikingly at odds. The diversity of Herod's kingdom is indicated by the distinct backgrounds of the soldiers participating in the conversation and, on a figurative level, by the different-colored wines the Tetrarch imports from three different colonies. Like his guards, the wine is a product and symbol of Herod's political rule; he appears to tolerate religious and cultural difference when it remains under his control and where he can profit from it. The soldiers' discussion of religion, then, draws the audience's attention back to Iokanaan, a prophet of a new and as yet unsanctioned Christian religion whose faith may not be reconcilable with the terms of Herod's rule. The soldiers also note that Herod is "looking at some one" and has a "sombre aspect"--the play's first indication of the King's desire for Salome. The conversation between the Page of Herodias and the Young Syrian functions less to articulate information about the characters and action than to highlight the symbolic preoccupations of the play and sketch the network of unfulfilled desire in which all the characters operate. The Page and the Syrian open the play with a discussion of the moon, which is explicitly paralleled to Salome (it is "like a little princess who wears a yellow veil") throughout the narrative, and the dynamic between these two characters is presented as asymmetrical, with the Syrian clearly desiring Salome and the Page strangely invested in thwarting the Syrian's desire. Foreshadowing one of the play's major themes, the Syrian's desire is provoked and enhanced by the act of looking: the Page begs his friend not to look directly at the princess, since "it is dangerous to look at people too much ... [something] terrible might happen." The Page's appeal to the Syrian to look at the moon instead thus highlights the play's exploration of the gaze, or look, as the vehicle of desire. Yet, as the dialogue indicates, such desire goes unsatisfied. In the world of the play, love exists, but it is unlikely to be fulfilled. This dynamic of unrequited desire shapes the narrative's tragic arc. The play's obsession with the relationship between desire and language (one that recurs throughout Wilde's writing) is also established through the different parallels the Page and the Syrian draw between Salome and the moon. Sensing his friend's desire for Salome, the Page implores him to instead look "at the moon ... she is like a dead woman ... one might fancy she was looking for dead things." To keep the Syrian's desire unfulfilled, the Page uses the moon in two ways: first, he replaces the act of looking at Salome with the act of looking at the moon, and second, he draws a parallel between the moon and Salome that is negative, calling attention to the murderous, ominous qualities that will later lead her to order Iokanaan's execution. The Syrian accepts the first substitution (Salome with the moon) but alters the comparison to a positive one that reflects his affection for the object of his desire. He compares the moon to a princess who "wears a yellow veil," "has little white doves for feet," and might be "dancing." The Syrian thus uses the moon to invoke Salome not in her murderous aspect, but in her seductive persona, the dancer of the erotic "Dance of the Seven Veils." For both characters, the moon is a metaphor for Salome--a substitution for her. More aptly, talking about the moon is a substitution for Salome, in that the two men exchange metaphors about the moon instead of looking at Salome. In the absence of the possibility of fulfilling his desire, the Syrian (prompted by the Page) turns to metaphoric language as a means of getting near the object of his desire without confronting it (and thus being rejected). Readers mostly familiar with realist drama and fiction will notice the ornate, abstract prose of Salome, particularly in the dialogue between the Page and the Syrian. The characters' conversations with each other do not "flow" like real conversations, and their accounts of each other, objects, and events are rarely concrete or realistic. For example, the comparison of the moon to either a "dead woman" or a "little princess" is far-fetched, even impossible for readers to imagine. In literary terms, such a technique is called a "conceit," a metaphor that claims similarity between two highly dissimilar things; a conceit tends to be used less for descriptive purposes than figurative or thematic ones. This is typical in particular of French Symbolism, a late 19th-century literary movement of which Wilde was particularly infatuated during the composition of Salome. In Salome, as in the Symbolist texts it was influenced by, characters and objects are presented less as "real" things than as mouthpieces, or vehicles, for the intellectual ideas and symbols the text is working through. Thus, for example, the soldiers' preoccupation with blood, while foreshadowing the series of murders to follow, is intended less as an indicator of the soldiers' characters than as an example of the way that the symbol of blood (like the symbol of the veil) circulates throughout. In Symbolist style, the characters and action of Salome are not so much "unrealistic" as they are secondary to the complex of symbolic meanings that the play explores. The Symbolist concerns of Salome are distilled and enhanced by Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations, of which 12 were originally included in the body of the first English edition. Honing his highly stylized, semi-abstract, Japanese-influenced style, Beardsley's illustrations did not simply depict scenes from Wilde's narrative. In fact, they often contain images of characters who are not in the text as well as props and clothing that are anachronistic for 1st-century Judea. Instead, Beardsley focused on rendering explicit the themes and preoccupations that were implicit in the written and performed text. On the original title page, for example, Beardsley included two nude androgynous figures, one with goat horns, breasts and male genitals, and the other with angel wings and a semi-erect penis, perching between oversized candles in a forest of stylized carnations. There is no corresponding scene in the play, however. The illustration's fusion of the traditional symbols of masculine and feminine, evil and good, points the reader to the similar preoccupations with gender and religious values in the text. This focus on sexual ambiguity is also present in the frontispiece, which contains a famous caricature of Wilde as the face of the moon, which in the play (we have seen) is associated with the feminine character Salome.
Summary and Analysis of Section II (to the entrance of Herod and Herodias)
Salome enters. She explains to the group on the balcony that she became tired of the banquet, which was filled with Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans whose customs she found baffling and dull. She also admits that she became tired of Herod's constant staring at her. Upon hearing the shouting of Iokanaan, Salome becomes curious and asks the Young Syrian and the Second Soldier questions about the body behind the voice. They explain that Iokanaan is the prophet who has been shouting "terrible things" about Herodias, Salome's mother, and tell her that he is imprisoned in the palace cistern. A slave enters, imploring Salome to return to the banquet. She refuses, instead asking the First Solidier to allow her to visit Iokanaan, with whom she wishes to speak. The slave exits, and Salome, approaching the cistern, asks the soldiers to let him out so that she may see him. Repeating Herod's orders, they refuse, and Salome finally turns to the Young Syrian. She promises to smile at him the following day when she is travelling through the gateway of the idol-sellers, and he grants her wish, releasing Iokanaan from the depths of the cistern. Iokanaan steps out of the cistern and, looking at Salome, begins shouting invectives against Herodias, whom he considers sinful for having married her husband's brother. When Salome introduces herself as Herodias's daughter, Iokanaan curses her as the daughter of Babylon and implores her to seek the counsel of the Messiah to wash away her sin. Ignoring this plea, Salome admits that she is "amorous" of Iokanaan's body, and she describes the prophet in two extended poetic passages that compare his skin to snow, his hair to serpents, and his lips to coral. Despite his horror at her lust, Salome promises Iokanaan: "I will kiss thy mouth." The Young Syrian, overcome with jealousy, kills himself. The Page laments his death, explaining that the Young Syrian was closer to him "than a brother." The First and Second Soldiers work to hide the body from Herod who, they claim, "does not care to see dead bodies, save the bodies of those who he himself has slain." Unconcerned with the commotion, Salome continues to plead with Iokanaan for a kiss. Iokanaan, again urging Salome to seek "the Son of Man" instead, returns to the depths of the cistern. AnalysisThe dramatic events that unfold between Salome's entrance and the entrance of Herod and Herodias establishes the main conflicts of the play. Upon Salome's entrance, she confirms to the soldiers that Herod was staring at her lasciviously, thus alerting the audience to the intensity of Herod's desire for her. By convincing the Young Syrian to allow her access to Iokanaan against the Tetrarch's orders, Salome demonstrates her power over men, a power that they often succumb to against their own interests. And Salome's persistent desire for Iokanaan, which is met with stalwart resistance on the part of the prophet, sets up the central conflict between Salome and Iokanaan that will eventually lead to both their deaths. In contrast to the biblical narrative on which Wilde's play is based, in which Salome was the unwitting target of her stepfather's lust, Salome appears here as not just an object of desire (for Herod and the Young Syrian) but as a desiring agent, just as intent on fulfilling her desire as the famously lecherous Herod. The questions of visibility and looking are central to how this part of Salome works through the question of Salome as a desiring subject. Many feminist critics of the play have pointed out that Salome is constructed as an object of the male gaze. That is, men express and partly fulfill their desire for women visually, by looking at them. But Salome seems aware of her status as an object, in that she manipulates it to her own benefit. For example, while she initially claims innocence regarding why Herod is staring at her, she quickly relents, stating "of a truth, I know it too well." Later, Salome gains access to the imprisoned Iokanaan by capitalizing on the Syrian's desire for her, telling him that the next day, she will "look at [him] through the muslin veils." Salome is aware not only of the Syrian's infatuation for her, but also of how such desire plays out through the act of looking. To promise that she will look back at the man who desires her is a promise to fulfill that desire. In the world of Salome, looking is a meaningful act; hence, Salome is certain that he "wilt do this thing." Thus Salome is made to be a cunning female character, quite different from the naive ideal of femininity that dominated late Victorian culture. Salome also gives as well as she gets, through her frankly sexual desire for Iokanaan. Within late Victorian discourses on feminine sexuality (Freud's, for example), women were portrayed as inherently asexual, the maternal love instinct superseding and canceling romantic and sexual desire. Salome, who openly admits and even celebrates the fact that she is "amorous" of Iokanaan's body, deviates from the Victorian feminine norm and expresses a norm more characteristic of other times (recall Potiphar's wife being amorous for Joseph in Genesis), suggesting that the play is, at least in part, a critique of gender stereotypes common in Wilde's time. But is Salome's a distinctly feminine sexuality, or is she a character given masculine instincts? Indeed, her desire is expressed in the same visual terms as that of Herod and the Syrian--she wishes to see the prophet, whom Herod hides from public view--but this expression does not seem gendered in itself. In the world of the play, to look at someone is to be seduced by him or her; hence, Iokanaan's refusal to return Salome's gaze. Salome's gaze appears to be as potent an expression of sexual desire as Herod's, and Iokanaan's rejection of Salome acknowledges her sexuality while reframing it in terms of Christian morality. Moreover, Salome's request to kiss his mouth represents a threat not just to Iokanaan's ethics but to his source of identity as a prophet. Associated with his powerful voice, which tells the events of both future and past, Iokanaan resists Salome's claim to his mouth as though it represents a symbolic usurping of the Christian word by the corrupt existing order of Herod's Judea. As in many plays, desire in Salome is unilateral; that is, each character seems able to desire only one other at a time, and this pattern establishes particular tension among the Page, the Syrian, and Salome. Upon hearing that Salome desires Iokanaan, the Syrian kills himself. The news that she desires another confirms that she does not desire him. Upon the Syrian's death, the Page is distraught, implying that he too has now lost the object of his desire and will remain incomplete. While explicit references to homosexuality were forbidden by the censors of Victorian England, the intensity of the Page's grief, as well as his claim that the Syrian was "more than a brother" to him, imply that the Page's love for his friend was sexual. The death of the Syrian confirms that the Page's passion for him, and his for Salome, will remain unrequited, which symbolically links unfulfilled sexual desire to bodily death, a theme explored more fully toward the end of the dramatic action. While Herod has yet to be introduced to the audience, the second section of Salome continues to elaborate his character. We learn not only of his desire for Salome, which she appears to be in control of, but also that he is afraid of Iokanaan, whose prophesies of a powerful new religion and large following establish him as a threat to Herod's power over his land and people. When the Syrian kills himself, the soldiers hurry to remove his body, since, they explain, "he does not care to see dead bodies, save the bodies of those whom he himself has slain." That is, Herod does not like to see evidence that he is not in control of the workings of the world. By hiding the evidence, he convinces himself that all remains within his power. Herod's decision to conceal Iokanaan from sight in the palace cistern testifies to the threat the prophet, and the new Christian order he embodies, poses to Herod's power. It also indicates the important link between power and visiblity in the play. Like the body of the Syrian, the prophet is kept out of sight, his invisibility ensuring that the evidence of Herod's faltering power is not made public. Beardsley's illustrations in this section follow his previous ones in that they forgo exegesis for abstracted commentary on the themes and concerns that emerge from the dramatic action. For example, the illustrations of Salome in the plate "The Black Cape" and "John and Salome" differ from each other. In the first, a highly stylized Salome poses in an Edwardian black cape and summer hat (not mentioned in the narrative), and in the second, she wears a thorned headdress and exotic costume that bares both her breasts and her navel. Depicting Salome in the costumes of different eras, Beardsley calls the reader's attention to the performative and chameleon-like qualities of Wilde's heroine that are implicit, but not immediately accessible, in the written text. The thorned headdress Salome wears in "John and Salome," recalling the crown of thorns Jesus wore on the cross, links the princess to the Christian Iokanaan, highlighting the similarities between the two characters as the ultimate victims of Herod's machinations. Salome's revealing costume further enhances the erotic atmosphere of the text and enforces Wilde's presentation of the princess as a sexually desiring and desirous agent.
Summary and Analysis of Section III (to the Dance of the Seven Veils)
Herod and Herodias enter, accompanied by their guests. Herod comments on the moon and openly wonders about Salome's whereabouts. Herodias, sensing trouble, asks her husband to return to the palace interior, but Herod insists on keeping the festivities on the terrace. As his attendant moves the tables and lighting outside, Herod slips in the blood of the slain Syrian, which he takes as an omen. Herodias, who does not believe in omens, scoffs at her husband. The two soldiers confess that the Syrian killed himself, and the group discusses suicide, which Herod considers "ridiculous." Herod reveals that the Young Syrian, the captain of his guard, is actually the son of a king Herod has displaced and a queen who is now a slave to Herodias. Despite Herodias's warning against looking at Salome, Herod implores the princess to join him over wine and fruit. She refuses, which amuses Herodias. The voice of Iokanaan, shouting insults about Herodias, interrupts the discussion and upsets the queen. When Herod explains that Iokanaan is "a very great prophet," Herodias replies that she does not believe in prophecy. She suggests to her husband that he turn Iokanaan over to the Jews who "have been clamoring for him." A conversation between five Jews reveals that, while they have different thoughts about the "unseen" Jewish God, they are all offended by Iokanaan's claim to be a prophet, a title conferred only on the Hebrew prophet Elias. Iokanaan speaks about Christ, "the Savior of the World." Joined now by a Christian Nazarene, he discusses the controversial figure with Herod and Herodias. Herod expresses indifference about most of Christ's miracles, but he instructs the Nazarene to convey to Christ his message: "no man shall raise the dead." Iokanaan's continued ravings about Herodias's "harlotry" provoke the couple to argue some more about the truth of the prophet's insults. Herod attempts to conduct business with one of his Roman guests but is immediately distracted when he again catches sight of Salome. Herodias again implores her husband to return inside, but he ignores her. Herod, transfixed by Salome, asks her to dance for him. When Salome refuses, Herodias is amused, which again prompts Herod to speculate about the truth of Iokanaan's assessment of their blasphemous marriage. Perhaps, Herod points out, theirs is a "marriage of evils," since Herodias is sterile. Pointing out that she bore Salome, and that it was in fact Herod who was sterile, Herodias calls her husband "a fool." Herod declares that if he says Herodias is sterile, then she is sterile, and he returns his attention to Salome. Salome again refuses Herod's request, and Herod resorts to begging and then bargaining. He offers her anything of her choice from his vast kingdom for a single dance. Making Herod swear on his own life that he will grant her anything she desires, Salome finally agrees, ignoring her mother's orders that she not dance for the Tetrarch. Salome prepares for her dance, asking her attendants to bring her veils and to remove her sandals. As she does so, Herod notices that the floor is still covered in blood (a bad omen) and that the moon has "become red"--as Iokanaan prophesied. Iokanaan shouts yet another prophesy of doom as Salome dances the Dance of the Seven Veils. AnalysisThe dialogues between Herod and the other characters onstage continue the play's exploration of the complex relationship between language and desire. Like the Syrian in Salome's introductory dialogue, Herod, in the absence of Salome, reverts to displacing his desire for her onto the moon, which he describes as "a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers ... naked too." Language, specifically metaphor or conceit, is a temporary substitute for the fulfillment of Herod's sexual desire. Herodias, however, refuses to indulge in metaphor, telling her husband that "the moon is like the moon, that is all." As one of the play's only characters who is not consumed with unrequited desire, Herodias has no need for figurative language. We may also note here Herodias's awareness of her husband's desire for her daughter: when Herod explains that the party should move to the terrace, where his guests will be more comfortable, she replies wryly, "It is not because of them you remain." Denying Herod's description of the moon, then, is one of the ways that Herodias attempts to deny or thwart his attraction to Salome. The parallel Wilde continually suggests between Salome and the moon draws on traditions of Greek and Roman mythology that figured the moon as a goddess. In particular, he recalls the Hellenic divinity Cybele, whose potent femininity led her male followers to castrate themselves and begin new lives as women. Like Cybele, Salome's threat is in her control over men, who are made impotent (or less powerful) by their sexual desire for her. The reappearance of the moon/Salome figure in this section of the play foreshadows Herod's eventual loss of political control, thus operating as a kind of ill omen. Not surprisingly, Herodias refuses to acknowledge the validity of omens, claiming (as did others in the ancient world) that she does not believe in them. She refuses to see extra significance in the blood on the terrace floor (left over from the body of the Syrian) and claims not to hear the sound of beating wings in the wind. She also denies the possible truth of Iokanaan's prophetic claims. By claiming not to believe in omens or prophesy, Herodias attempts to deny the unfolding of the ominous events to come, which hinge on Salome's submission to her husband's inappropriate desire. The conversations among the characters in the play's third section--between Herod and Herodias, Herod and his guests, and Herod and his soldiers--are frequently interrupted by Iokanaan's offstage voice, shouting either insults against Herodias or prophesies about the Messiah. On a structural level, the interruption of Herod by Iokanaan symbolizes the desire to thwart the threat of the new Christian order subverting and eventually overthrowing the current system of Judea. Moreover, Iokanaan's speech, which is not speculative or metaphoric but strictly declarative, contrasts strongly with the uncertain musings of Herod and his Jewish guests. As a prophet, Iokanaan has yet another relationship to language. His words are truth; they tell what will be. His prediction that Christ will soon be "seated on his throne ... clothed in scarlet and purple" places the Christian Lord in Herod's current position, which indicates that Iokanaan does not accept Herod as a ruler. (Forgotten is Jesus's idea that Caesar deserves the things that are Caesar's, while God's things are God's.) Herod's subsequent dialogue with his wife, in which he suggests he may believe in Iokanaan's prophesy, is thus less an indication of his spiritual transformation than of his political savvy. Herod panders to Iokanaan as a way of protecting himself against the possible upheaval of a new Christian order. The narrative and symbolic center of the third section of the play, however, is the bargaining between Salome and Herod. The agreement between Herod and Salome, that she will dance for him if he grants her anything she later wishes, departs from the biblical narrative in two important ways. First, while the biblical account has Herodias arranging for Salome's dance with Herod, Wilde makes Herodias an objector and recasts the decision to dance as Salome's own. Second, Wilde has the terms of the bargain struck before the dance, rather than after (as in the original account). These changes are significant, since they shift the responsibility for Iokanaan's beheading from Herodias (who, in the biblical narrative, sought the prophet's death as revenge for his insults against her) onto Salome. Moreover, that Salome makes Herod promise to grant her wish before, rather than after, the dance implicates Herod in the bloodshed to come, recasting the murder of Iokanaan as a direct result of his desire for Salome. Salome, aware of the intensity of Herod's desire for her, "sells" her body to Herod in exchange for access to the object of her own desire, a kiss from the otherwise resistant Iokanaan. The changes to the biblical story thus indicate the play's unique revision of the gender stereotypes that dominated Victorian discussions of the feminine. Wilde introduces feminine sexual desire to expand beyond the view of women as commodities. Salome is indeed a commodity, but at least she (not her parents) is in control of her own exchange on the sexual market. Moreover, she capitalizes on this status in order to secure the fulfillment of her own desire. Beardsley's illustrations in this section highlight the play's emphasis on performance, a theme represented in the narrative by the Dance of the Seven Veils. "Enter Herodias," like many of the drawings, suggests a relationship between performance and eroticism. Herodias is depicted as naked except for a cloak and anachronistic Japanese-style obi waistband. Accompanying her are two attendants: a naked, effeminate young man holding a bottle of perfume and a mask, and a monstrous fetus-like creature with cloven hooves. At the bottom of the frame, three candles burn in penis-shaped holders. In the frame's lower right corner, a caricature of Oscar Wilde looks out at the viewer, clutching a copy of Salome in one arm while gesturing proudly at Herodias with the other. This type of image is "meta-textual" in that it explicitly calls attention to its status as art. Thus, the drawing is less an illustration of the narrative of Salome than an illustration of Salome itself, as an artificial production. By calling the reader's attention to the fact that Salome is a play, an artificial creation of Wilde's, Beardsley implies that similar artifices are at stake in the narrative action. The presence of the mask in the illustration, as well as the explicitly erotic depiction of male genitalia on both the effeminate attendant and the candelabra, links sexuality to performance and foreshadows the central performance of the play: Salome's erotic Dance of the Seven Veils.
Summary and Analysis of Section IV (to the end)
Salome finishes her dance, which has impressed Herod. He reminds her that he has promised to grant any wish of hers, and she asks him to have brought to her, on a silver charger, the head of the prophet Iokanaan. Herodias, believing that Salome is avenging her honor, is pleased with the request, but the rest of the court is scandalized. Herod pleads with Salome to ignore her mother's wishes, but Salome assures the Tetrarch that she is acting on her own desires. Herod tries bargaining with Salome in order to get her to retract her request. He offers her "the largest emerald in the whole world," his famous white peacocks, and a variety of precious jewels, including pearls, topaz stones, and magical turquoise--if she will reconsider her wish. Salome refuses all these offers, again asking for Iokanaan's head on a silver charger. Herod offers her parrot feather fans and a garment of ostrich feathers, which she also refuses. Finally Herod explains to Salome the grave consequences that will surely befall his court, if not the world, if her wish is granted, but Salome remains unconvinced. Again she asks for the head. To the concern of all at court, Herod reluctantly orders Iokanaan's execution. Anticipating the slaughter, Salome waits above the cistern. She narrates the beheading according to what she can hear, noting that Iokanaan does not cry out. Realizing that the executioner has failed to do his job, she orders the Page of Herodias and the soldiers to force him to complete his task. Finally, the executioner emerges with Iokanaan's head on his silver shield. Addressing Iokanaan's severed head, Salome begins a monologue in which she shifts through several different moods. First, she rejoices that she is finally able to kiss his mouth as she had wished. Second, she is frustrated and angry that his eyes are closed, indicating that, even in death, Iokanaan is unwilling to look at her. Third, she rages against the prophet for his repeated insults against her and her mother. Finally, Salome turns melancholy, speculating that had Iokanaan looked at her, he would have loved her the way she instantly loved him. Meanwhile, Herod and Herodias exchange commentary on the events that have just passed. Herod feels certain that Salome has committed "a crime against some unknown God," and Herodias explains that her daughter "has done well." Certain that "some terrible thing" will befall his court, Herod orders his slaves to "put out the torches" and "hide the moon," and he prepares to leave the terrace for the relative safety of the palace interior. As Herod's attendants extinguish the terrace torches, a cloud suddenly conceals the moon, leaving only a ray of light to illumine Salome as she finally kisses Iokanaan on the mouth. Catching sight of the kiss on his way up the palace staircase, Herod orders his soldiers to "kill that woman," and Salome is crushed to death beneath their shields. AnalysisSalome's monologue, addressed to Iokanaan's severed head, indicates the impossbility of her desire ever being truly fulfilled. Even in death, Iokanaan's eyes are closed; he still does not "look" at her as she has demanded. Throughout the play's narrative, the act of looking triggers and affirms the process of sexual desire, while the mutual look indicates its partial fulfillment. Characters reject others by either refusing to return glances or by gazing on another. Hence, Salome's statement: "If thou hadst seen me thou hadst loved me. I saw thee, and I loved thee." Iokanaan's closed eyelids indicate that he remains unattainable as the object of Salome's desire. He does not look at her; she is invisible to him and thus undesired. Salome's death, ultimately, is the result of Herod's recognition of her desire for Iokanaan. As the executioner emerges from the cistern with the severed head of Iokanaan, Wilde's stage directions describe Herod hiding "his face with his cloak" as Salome seizes the head and begins her extended soliloquy. He is terrified of witnessing the scene of Salome's desire, as he indicates further when he instructs his servants to obscure it entirely: Manassch, Issachar, Ozias, put out the torches. I will not look at things, I will not suffer things to look at me. Put out the torches! Hide the moon! Hide the stars! Let us hide ourselves in our palace, Herodias. I begin to be afraid. Herod's fear of seeing Salome's performance with Iokanaan's head is well placed. His fear is of seeing her desire of Iokanaan, which indicates, in turn, the impossibility of ever fulfilling his own desire for her. In this sense, the scene of Salome's death echoes the scene of the Syrian's suicide. That is, according to the logic of the play, death is the easy answer to the acknowledgement of unfulfilled desire. One of the most powerful suggestions of Salome's agency and her control over her own image appears in Beardsley's illustration, "The Toilette of Salome (I)." Salome, seated before an anachronistic Victorian vanity and clad in a 19th-century decollete gown, is being powdered by a fetus-like attendant wearing a mask. On the lower shelf of her vanity, a collection of books, including volumes by Zola and the Marquis de Sade, are arranged beneath a display of cosmetics and perfumes. The implication is that Salome is an erotic work of art (akin to the books on her vanity) who is "perfecting" herself for the Dance of the Seven Veils. The emphasis on artifice in the illustration is further suggested by the attendant's mask and the abundance of cosmetics, Salome's own "mask," in which she performs as an erotic spectacle for Herod. Even so, she is to some degree self-created, aware of her status as a spectacle and even more aware of how she can capitalize on it to her own advantage. In this way, Salome is the quintessential persona of Wildean aestheticism, summed up by his epigram: "The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible." Visibility is again a key trope in the final scene. Herod seeks to darken the court entirely, putting the enactment of Salome's desire out of his sight, rendering it invisible and thus ineffective. He gets his wish as his servants extinguish the torches and, as Wilde's stage directions indicate, "A great cloud crosses the moon and conceals it completely ... the stage becomes quite dark." Salome finishes her soliloquy in complete darkness, her desire invisible to the king whose potency depends on its remaining out of sight. But this invisibility is temporary. The final action in the play, the fulfillment of Herod's imperative--"Kill that woman!"--results from a full illumination, the return of Salome's desire to complete visibility, when a ray of moonlight falls on Salome and illumines her. The stage directions here are crucial: Herod has previously been described as looking at Salome, but now, turning round, he sees her. Feminist critics have noted in this final scene a confirmation of Salome's status as femme fatale (a dangerous woman). The femme fatale was a particularly important figure through which many late 19th-century artists worked through anxiety surrounding the increasing social and political visibility of women. From this perspective, Salome's kissing of Iokanaan's severed head represents the usurping of male power by female power (in part as symbolized by grasping Iokanaan's source of power, his voice, and in part by engaging in a forbidden practice). The moon, blood-colored as Iokanaan predicted, indicates the final correspondence between feminine power (symbolized by the moon) and mass destruction. The moment of Salome's kiss of the late Iokanaan marks the fulfillment of Salome's narrative arc. The girl proves herself a bloodthirsty femme fatale.
ClassicNote on Salome
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