Salome (Wilde): Themes and derivatives
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Salome by Oscar Wilde, a play written in 1891 and first produced in 1896, has been analysed by numerous literary critics, and has prompted numerous derivatives. The play depicts the events leading to the execution of Iokanaan (John the Baptist) at the instigation of Salome, step-daughter of Herod Antipas, and her death on Herod's orders.
Some critics, including Christel Stalpaert, Bram Van Oostveldt and Jaak Van Schoor, view Wilde's Salomé as a composite of earlier treatments of the theme overlaid, in terms of dramatic influences, with the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck's characteristic methodical diction,[2][3] and specifically Maeterlinck's La Princesse Maleine, 'with its use of colour, sound, dance, visual description and visual effect'.[4]
Although the "kissing of the head" element was used in Heine and Joseph Converse Heywood's, treatments, Wilde's ingenuity was to move it to the play's climax. While his debts are undeniable, there are some novel elements in his version, such as his persistent use of parallels between Salomé and the moon.[5][6][7] Christopher Nassaar pointed out that Wilde employs a number of the images favoured by Israel's kingly poets and that the moon is meant to suggest the pagan goddess Cybele, who, like Salomé, was obsessed with preserving her virginity and thus took pleasure in destroying male sexuality.[8]
Following the prelude three demarcated episodes follow: the meeting between Salomé and Iokanaan, the phase of the white moon; the major public central episode, the dance and the beheading, the phase of the red moon; and finally the conclusion, when the black cloud conceals the moon.[9]
An argument is made by Brad Bucknell in his essay, "On "Seeing" Salomé" that the play can be seen as a struggle between the visual, in the form of various characters' gazing as well as Salomé's dance, and the written word. Salome's dance (which is never described) overpowers Iokanaan's prophecies, and Salomé herself dies due to Herod's command to crush her. As Bucknell writes of Salomé's dance, "The power of the word is inverted, turned back upon its possessors, the prophet and the ruler-figure of the tetrarch."[10]
The idea of the gaze—specifically the male gaze—is also explored by Linda and Michael Hutcheon in "'Here's Lookin' At You, Kid': The Empowering Gaze in Salomé". In their essay, the two write that Salomé's body "clearly becomes the focus of the attention—and the literal eye—of both audience and characters. As dancer, Salomé is without a doubt the object of the gaze—particularly Herod's male gaze." The Hutcheons argue that while the male gaze has been traditionally rooted in the idea of sexual privilege, leading to a gendering of the gaze as 'male' in the first place, the character of Salomé undermines this theory by knowingly using the male gaze to her advantage, first by gaining access to Iokanaan via the male gaze and later through her dance.[11]
Others argue that the female gaze is also present in the play, with Salome gazing and objectifying Iokanaan. As the critic Carmen Skaggs writes, "Syrian, Herod, and Salomé objectify the subjects of their gazes. They admire each one for his/her beauty alone. The desires of all three are forbidden and recognized as dangerous by those around them, but they are not persuaded to turn away".[12]
Skaggs also discusses in her essay "Modernity's Revision of the Dancing Daughter: The Salome Narrative of Wilde and Strauss” the possible homosexual subtext of Wilde's play. Skaggs points to one instance in the play when Salome promises Narraboth a flower, a signal of homosexuality in Wilde's time. Skaggs and other critics argue that Salomé's sexuality is presented as typically masculine, which makes the relationship between her and the Young Syrian border on the homoerotic. Skaggs also argues that Wilde is attempting to explore different forms of worship, with Salome, the Young Syrian, and Herod worshiping beauty and serving as contrasts for the religious Iokanaan, whose worship revolves around God.[12]
Salome is not named, but only referenced as "Herodias' daughter" in the Biblical story (Mark 6:22, Matthew 14:6), but Wilde chooses to make the focal point of the play the perversion of lust and desire of Salomé rather than Herodias's vengeance on John the Baptist. He uses the sexual power of the dance to construct lustful emotions, which are barred out in the biblical text. The depiction of Salome as a pawn to her mother Herodias diminishes her image as a woman of manipulation, but Wilde portrays her as a woman of power and manipulator creating this femme fatale manifestation. The kissing of John's severed head testifies to this ideal of what Bram Dijkstra calls "the virgin whore", a perversion of purity tainted by lustful desires.[13]
Joseph Donohue, a literary scholar, believes that Wilde uses poetic licence in filling in narrative gaps from the accounts of the head on the platter story, to tease out explicitly what was written implicitly.[14] Despite the similarities, Wilde's depiction mixes legend with biblical history, the temporal with the eternal, but also blends form and medium creating a complex rendition of sensual repulsion.[15]
