Christa Giles

Here Wilde evokes Herod’s hesitation between fear and
desire, fear of being in the power of uncontrollable forces
and the desire to relinquish himself to them. He feels
himself to be possessed by a magic not of himself. The
garland of flowers which burns Herod’s forehead is, of
course, symbolic of Salomé who has been identified both
with the white rose and the flower. Thus, Salomé evokes
and embodies both a blind sexual destruction and what
Baudelaire calls the ˝la froide majestée de la femme
stérile.˝ 297 The severed head in Salomé (which so often forms
the subject matter of Redon’s paintings) was suggestive not
only of unleashed and uncontrollable sexuality and lust,
but also of sterility, death, and castration.
In Le Vice Suprême, Péladan wrote that ˝…la
demonialité est une oeuvre de chair qui consiste à s’exalter
l’imagination, en fixant son désir sur un être mort, absent,
ou inexistant.˝ 298 And certainly the mental erethism, which
Salomé exhibits, is completely self-reflexive, her love for
Jokanaan a kind of necrophilia. (˝There was a bitter taste on
thy lips. Was it the taste of blood…? But perchance it is the
taste of love…˝) 299 suggest a sterile onanism, for Salomé can
only love what is dead or moribund. Thus, in the earlier
parts of the play, she is attracted to but hates Jokanaan. It is
only upon his death that she ˝loves˝ him completely. This
99