Christa Giles

105
The macabre and sinister aspect of woman issued in some
degree, as has been noted, from the belief that while she
embodied nature, and by extension sexuality, she also
embodied death. Wilde and Huysmans place a great
emphasis on disease, decay, and death in their work, which
often manifests itself as irony when juxtaposed with the
eternity of art. It is for this reason that Wilde goes to the
length of equating youth with perfection, claiming: ˝The
aim of perfection is youth.˝ In Des Esseintes’ nightmare, the
image of diseased woman, castration, and death are fused:
He made a superhuman effort to free himself
from her embrace, but with an irresistible
movement she clutched him and held him,
and pale with horror, he saw the savage
Nidularium blossoming between her uplifted
thighs, with its swordblades gaping open to
expose the bloody depths. 306
In addition to this perception of woman as incarnating evil
and the natural world, and by extension decay and death,
woman was also perceived as incarnating mystery (Wilde
had the frontpiece of the poem ˝The Sphinx˝ decorated with
the figure of Melancholia). Thus the figure of the sphinx is a
repeated motif in Wilde’s and Huysmans’ writings, and
appears frequently in decadent literature. Indeed, the