Salome

The veil represents both chastity and the barrier between the earthly and the divine. Several characters comment upon the clouds that cover the moon as though they were veils. The Page of Herodias describes the clouds, saying “you would think it was the hand of a dead woman who is seeking to cover herself with a shroud” (16). The image of a shroud implies the barrier between life and death, between the material world and the afterlife. A shroud is meant to create separation between a dead body and the living people who look at it. However, the Young Syrian compares the moon seen through the clouds to a princess smiling through a veil: “she is like a little princess, whose eyes are eyes of amber. Through the clouds of muslin she is smiling like a little princess” (16). This language is mirrored in Salomé’s promise to the Young Syrian that if he shows her Jokanaan she will “look at you through the muslin veils” (16). Here, the veil signifies Salomé’s modesty and the barrier between herself and the men who desire her sexually.

In Jokanaan’s case, a God-given veil prevents him from being sexually tempted by Salomé. Rather than a garment that covers a feminine body, Jokanaan’s veil covers his eyes, providing a barrier that allows him to exert control over his desires. When Salomé speaks to his corpse, she claims that “behind thine hands and thy curses thou didst hide thy face. Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him who would see his God” (64). Wilde plays with the language of exposure and sight here, indicating that in order to see God, Jokanaan had to blind himself to sexual temptation. The veil does more than prevent him from seeing Salomé; it allows him to see the divine.

Herod is a character who repeatedly violates the barrier of a veil, suggesting that his lechery will disrupt female chastity and his sacrilege will disrupt the divide between human and divine. When he sees the clouds passing over the moon, he perceives them as unwanted clothing, saying “the clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them” (27). Herod imagines that the feminized moon is drunk and licentious, trying to expose herself to him. The veil therefore becomes a sign of temptation that he will seek to remove. Notably, the dance that Salomé performs for him is called the dance of the seven veils, denoting her desire to keep herself hidden from his lustful gaze and his temptation to see beneath her coverings.

Likewise, Herodias points out that Herod has stolen the veil of the sanctuary, a cloth in the Temple of Jerusalem that was meant to separate holy artifacts such as the Ark of the Covenant from the view of the public. In the same way that Herod wants to remove women’s clothing, he wants to expose these holy relics, suggesting his blasphemous nature. When Salomé demands the head of Jokanaan as a prize, he offers “I will give thee the veil of the sanctuary” (61), denoting that he sees the object as nothing more than a valuable and exotic luxury item. However, the veil of the sanctuary also appears in the gospels. When Christ dies, Matthew 27:51 claims that the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two. Thus, the tearing of the veil represents the barrier between human and divine finally breaking when Christ ascends from manhood to Godhood.

While Salomé tries to keep herself veiled and safe from the sexual desire of men throughout the play, she is exposed in the final scene. When she kisses Jokanaan, she is visible to the court, and she is also crossing the border between life and death. Her action is therefore a perverse parody of the resurrection of Christ. Wilde employs the veil to play with the idea of barriers, both in a sacred and in a sexual context, implying that total exposure can be dangerous.