{"id":339,"date":"2022-03-20T20:58:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T00:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/?p=339"},"modified":"2022-03-20T20:58:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T00:58:20","slug":"the-act-of-looking-salome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/2022\/03\/20\/the-act-of-looking-salome\/","title":{"rendered":"The Act of Looking: Salome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s interesting reading Oscar Wilde\u2019s <em>Salome<\/em> as we see once more, a theme of physical attractiveness and beauty. There has been a similar theme with <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> in the sense that Gray carries an obsession with preserving his beautiful physical appearance. However, there lies a difference in the direction of the plot and such themes, as <em>Salome<\/em> carries a much darker lesson\/theme of finding pleasure in viewing or looking at beauty. There is a revolution of this theme, with Syrian and Herod\u2019s somewhat sickening lust for Salome which ultimately results in Syrian\u2019s own suicide as well as Herod\u2019s fall as well as murder of Salome. Salome\u2019s obsession with Jokanaan also depicts a similar obsession with viewing and physical obsession. It seems that Wilde is criticizing the action or tendency to view others; finding pleasure in viewing others is often what brings a character\u2019s downfall in this story. Perhaps such is a reflection of his own experience as a homosexual man living in a publicized life. It seems that Wilde is warning against the action of looking; it makes us wonder whether Wilde was warning against what seems to be a harmless activity anyone, homosexuals and heterosexuals alike, could take part in. Wilde writes, \u201cNeither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.\u201d Such once again, accentuates this warning against \u201cviewing.\u201d As a whole, the text of <em>Salome,<\/em> along with Oscar Wilde and his history, portrays the dangers of looking as the action of looking could very well, in many cases, result in much more for such a harmless act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s interesting reading Oscar Wilde\u2019s Salome as we see once more, a theme of physical attractiveness and beauty. There has been a similar theme with The Picture of Dorian Gray in the sense that Gray carries an obsession with preserving his beautiful physical appearance. However, there lies a difference in the direction of the plot &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/2022\/03\/20\/the-act-of-looking-salome\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Act of Looking: Salome<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}