Princess, Persona, and Subjective Desire: A Reading of Oscar Wilde's Salome, The

Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2004 by Marcovitch, Heather

When Salome uses Biblical analogies to describe Jokanaan's physical attributes, she throws Jokanaan's perception of her back in his face because, as Martine Thomas points out, Salome and Jokanaan "are unable to hear the meaning of their mutual words, since they only feel the resistance their words imply" (157). Salome uses Jokanaan's reputation in order to construct her perception of him. Whereas Jokanaan reviles Salome based on his preconceptions of her as her mother's daughter, Salome uses established preconceptions of Jokanaan to fuel her attraction towards him. But while Jokanaan limits his view of Salome to her persona, Salome refuses to dismiss him on account of his image as an infidel-hating ascetic. Salome sees in her fixation on Jokanaan's image a way to attain the power denied her as a perpetual object. She too can manipulate perceptions in order to get the object of her desire, and, significantly, she can do so with a man outside of Herod's court hierarchy. Salome's attempted seduction of Jokanaan is an endeavor to find power outside of the court and particularly to find a form of subjective power, one in which her power is not dependent on the gazes of others.

Salome and Jokanaan thus relate to each other from their own isolated perceptions. Elliott L. Gilbert notes that the play is "a veritable taxonomy of solipsism" (145). Just as Salome is trapped within her visualization of Jokanaan, Jokanaan is likewise circumscribed by how he sees the princess. When he looks at Salome, he only sees Herodias. When Salome introduces herself to him, Jokanaan responds by crying out, "Back! Daughter of Babylon!" and continues, "Thy mother hath filled the earth with the wine of her iniquities, and the cry of her sins hath come up to the ears of God" (558). Jokanaan refuses to look at Salome because he has already seen her before. Salome's persona, as far as Jokanaan is concerned, is not even her own-she is merely a reflection of Herodias. Jokanaan denies Salome the right to even have a persona that is identifiably hers, something Herod and his court at least grant her. His vision of her is one based on preconception. In other words, when he encounters Salome, his image of Herodias replaces any actual perception he might have of her. As Austin E. Quigley notes, Jokanaan's "unwillingness to look at a woman as beautiful as Salome can suggest diminished ability somewhere, weakness as well as strength" (107). Jokanaan, trapped in his dark cistern, is correspondingly blinded by his idealism. By refusing to look beyond Salome's persona, he shows himself to be complicit in the patriarchal structure of the court that has defined Salome by her image.

Salome's request for Jokanaan's head is thus predicated upon two things: her resentment of Herod's incestuous desire for her and a more generalized resentment of the fact that she is constantly objectified, even and especially by Jokanaan. Herod, in order to cajole Salome into performing an erotically-coded dance for him, actually gives Salome the freedom to exert her will in whatever fashion she desires. Herod's offer is in a sense a sign of defeat for Salome; unable to exert her will onto Jokanaan, Herod's offer makes it clear that the only power Salome can have access to is through her position as an object of desire. Thus her request for Jokanaan's head is a double attack against Jokanaan, for refusing to see her as an individual and not just as a type of royal harlot, and against Herod, for perpetuating her objectification in order to satisfy his own sexual desire for her. To Salome, both refusals to take her subjectivity into account have contributed to her request. As she says in her morbid address to the beheaded Jokanaan, "Well, thou hast seen thy God, Jokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou wouldst have loved me" (574).