The Aesthetics Of Desire In Salome

The main focus of this thesis is how erotic desire can be visualized, and how thisdesire and its ecstasy can be divinized, and what its relation to death is.As a representative work of Aestheticism, Salome is famous for its forcefulsimple language, similes and elaborate scheme. The title character Salome is not onlya femme fatale of the fin de siecle, but also a femme fragile. Her feminine fragilitymakes her even more enchanting and irresistible. Salome desire is feverish andfrantic, and most fatal for she would seek for its fulfillment to kiss the prophet’s headat any price, who is the symbol of beauty in her eyes.Then the thesis tries to find out how erotic desire, the abstract concept, isvisualized. And how those images, colors and actions intertwine figuratively andlinguistically in the drama. Specifically, all principal characters are associated with themoon, which foretells, and reflects their minds and dispositions. And all thecharacters are linked by one action, which is the “look”. Colors play anotherimportant role too in the visualization of the characters’ fervent desire. The maincolors are white, red and black. When they are applied to different characters, theymean differently.To fulfill her exotic desire, Salome dances the sensual dance for Herod, enticinghim to promise her the head of Jokanaan. Salome finds ecstasy of sexual fulfillmentsymbolically in the kissing, and she experiences her individual divinity in a dividedworld without God. Her transgression, to touch and to kiss a man who cannot bedesired, is a great effort to enlarge her experience limits as what is asserted by Pater.To break the taboos is to cross the limits, which makes the moment with highestqualities. In Salome, sensuality, joy, beauty and death are indistinguishable.