In Oscar Wilde’s Salome, the image of the moon is conjured up continuously by many of the characters, often equating the celestial body with the young princess Salome. The Young Syrian notes “how pale the Princess is,” equating her pale and unearthly beauty with that of the moon’s. As the men of the play continue to sexualize and objectify Salome, they transform her into an object as foreign to them as the moon is. By stripping Salome of her humanity and ignoring her desires, the king and the young Syrian ensure she will not feel for them. Instead, Salome desires Iokanaan, whom she conflates with the moon as well, declaring, “I am sure he is chaste, as the moon is.” The characters in this play can only desire by turning their objects of desire into literal objects, denying them agency and ignoring the potential that these objects might not desire them back.
When Herodias says “no; the moon is like the moon, that is all,” she is pushing back against her husband’s perverse romanticization of her daughter, reminding Herod that he is conflating an inanimate object with a living person.
