summary thoughts, part 1

So, Kathryn, I have been carefully reading the play and taking notes in the margins. I want to put them here so you know what my reading of the play is. Some of the notes are by way of summary, but some actually involve critical thought. :) Maybe laying out a summary of the play will help us see common thematic elements that are more deeply embedded. (You alluded to this when you mentioned to me you were trying to decipher the meaning of certain colors.)

Here it goes.

I am exceedingly intrigued by the cistern that appears within the first four lines to set the scene. Cisterns have a long and venerable history, and it would be interesting to investigage Wilde's choice of this location for John's imprisonment.

The first official line of the play is "How beautiful is the Princess Salome to-night." Narraboth presents her beauty as a fact of his experience. His line is followed up by the Page's statement about the moon. It is a metaphorical construction that compares the moon to a dead woman. The moon holds a great deal of meaning throughout the play for numerous characters. It seems that she, in the play she is called she and traditionally the moon is feminine, becomes a mirror of the goings on below. Each male character notes her appearance, usually by analogy to something else. Herodias does not think the moon is like anything but itself. Is she resisting the male interpretation of things? The male gaze is certainly almost obsessively the focus of this play (either the way it is meted out or withheld). How do women challenge or resist that gaze?

Page 1:
Narraboth: Salome looks strange, like royalty. She appears to be dancing. Here there is antecedent confusion; he does not say "Salome has a strange look." He says "She," which makes it seem that he just took up the Page's description of the moon. But clearly the two men have independent descriptions going. Here is where the Salome/moon conflation begins that continues throughout the play. Interestingly, the moon is personified, which seems uncharacteristic for the male gaze.

Page: moon is slow moving.

The Roman soldiers say that it is "ridiculous" that Jews dispute about their religion. Adds a little color to the cultural and biblical setting. It also sets up a spot for John, who in typical Hebrew prophet fashion seems to speak against the grain of common society, is literally a voice crying in a wilderness of voices that do not know the proper will of God.

page 2:

Narraboth notes Salome's beauty again. Page displays his jealousy and his fatalism by saying that N. should not look at Salome so much because "something terrible may happen." It is perhaps significant that the page belongs to Herodias because his statement could be interpreted as looking out for his mistress's interests. But with his lament for N. after he kills himself the page betrays his love.

The soldiers comment on Herod's appearance. He is "sombre" and "is looking at someone."

N. notes S's paleness. His description of her whiteness is hyperbolic. Shadow of a white rose in a silver mirror? Please. He worships her, and white is usually meant to be emblematic of purity. In contrast, the first description of Herodias is of her black mitre with pearls and her blue-dusted hair. This, combined with the Beardsley illustration "Enter Herodias," makes her out to be a terrible authority figure (mitre suggest leadership). In the illustration, she is a woman with exceedingly large and pugnacious breasts, to borrow a phrase from Their Eyes Were Watching God. This illustration, and all of the illustrations of women in this book for that matter, are dripping with irony. The women's dresses and capes appear to fill the entire page yet their genetalia are so blatantly displayed. Automatically it seems an insult to propriety, but this was obviously intentional on Beardsley's part. B.'s drawings are classified as erotica (see, for example, the title page). This says something about the reception and transmission of these images in popular culture. *We need to find out about the history of the Beardsley illustrations. Beardsley also displays male genetalia, but in two places: "The Woman in the Moon" (if the moon really is a woman, should not the Page cover himself out of respect?); in the page's "Platonic Lament" for Narraboth, his genetalia are concealed behind his shroud and bier. The second place is in "The Eyes of Herod." The two candelabra-bearing cherubs have male genetalia. But Herod, the lustful foil to Salome, is completely covered in the same illustration. Salome, however, has her right breast displayed quite obviously. The light that interposes between the two looks like an abbreviated menorah, and the five flames cast up a veil of smoke between Herod and Salome. Oh, there is a third instance of the male genetalia--in the second "Toilette of Salome," but this is incidental, I think. It is not only the genetalia and midriffs that make these illustrations "erotic." To me it seems as though the various characters' eyes, languishing or hostile or nearly nonexistent concealed behind masks make the illustrations provocative. It's also the moderately extreme poses, particuarly that of the "The Climax," fittingly.

Okay, I didn't get very far in terms of the play, but I will write again soon.