Analysis of Salome by Carol Ann Duffy (Essay Example)

Salome is the step-daughter of King Herod the second. She is a biblical character, but silent. Nonetheless, she is known for the role of executing John the Baptist. The background story happened on King Herod II’s birthday. King Herod II demanded Salome to dance to please himself and the guests. After the dance, her father offered her a chance to have anything for exchange, while Salome’s mother convinced Salome to have the head of John the Baptist. This trade eventually led to the execution of John the Baptist.  

In summary, Salome woke up from a heavy hangover and found a head lying next to her. She did not care about the anonymous head and continued her acts. Then Salome called her innocent maid to serve her breakfast. The maid came, but the scene she saw in Salome’s bedroom scared her. The plates splattered on the floor. After cleaning, Salome was talking to herself and promising that she would have a renewal of her moral acts. Besides her conversation to herself, she looked at herself in the mirror. Finally, Salome revealed that the head next to her was the head of John the Baptist on a platter. 

The subject of the poem is Salome. She is the representation of the silent female characters in the Bible. Carol Ann Duffy wrote this since she wanted to give these silent characters a voice to speak about their immoral stories. We are not acknowledged when and where the poem has happened since the author carried out a mythological character and spoke in a contemporary voice. The only notion we know is that Salome is in her bedroom. 

There are a few imageries in this poem. Most of these imageries refer to as tactile. For instance, in the first stanza, “and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew/ how to flatter…/ which I kissed…/ colder than pewter.” The sensation of kissing the lips of John the Baptist was cold, “colder than pewter (a type of metal).” Another sensational imagery occurred in the last stanza, “I flung back the sticky red sheets,” In this case, the figurative image would be that the blood from the head of John the Baptist stained the sheets and made them “red” and “sticky”.

On the other hand, we do not have many figures of speech used in this poem. The author only used two types of figures of speech: similes and metaphors. The difference between these two techniques is that similes use as and like; for metaphors, they do not use as or like. In “Salome”, one simile appears in stanza three, “who’d come like a lamb to the slaughter,” this simile indicates the meaning of sacrifice, but it furthermore illustrates Christian symbolism. The animal lamb, in Christianity, means Christ as both suffering and triumphant. Moreover, it is usually a sacrificial animal in the Bibel. 

Metaphors in this poem always hint about blood from the head of John the Baptist. For example, in the first stanza, “the reddish beard several shades lighter;”. The blood from the head of John the Baptist stained his beard. Likewise, in one of the previous examples, “and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew”. This illustration hints that the blood shaded his mouth into a dark red.