The New Testament Of Salome And Gender

Salome is a drinker and drug taker who was so immersed in her ways that she couldn’t even remember the name of the man she had ordered to be beheaded: ‘What was his name? Peter? Simon? Andrew? John?’ All these names are those of some of Jesus’ disciples – another religious reference towards Salome’s era (she features in the New Testament of the Bible). This also indicates to the reader that all of her victims (the people that she’s chosen to be beheaded) are men – this concept is used by the author to convey Salome’s method of gaining back control over the male gender in a society dominated by men. Society would have expected her to be controlled by a man and so her actions are an elaborate attempt of gaining revenge and self-empowerment.
Murder not only goes against religion (Salome is referenced in the New Testament of the bible so we can assume that this religious reference symbolises her Christian beliefs), but as we know she has a maid, thus being wealthy, we can also assume that she orders people to be executed rather than commit murder herself. A wealthy woman having many sexual partners and then having the power to demand for their execution is very strange, especially in a modern era. We do not known exactly when the poem is set, however the contemporary language reveals a modern setting. Carol Ann Duffy uses the word ‘booze’ which first appears in the English language in the 14th century, but the way it is spelt in the poem doesn’t appear until the 17th century. As it is a first person narrative, then we can say that the poem wasn’t set any time after the 1600s. If we guess that the poem was set before the 20th century, so between the 17th and 20th, women were stereotypically supposed to be inferior to men. However this poem portrays Salome as vastly superior. She has power over these men, enough power to kill and get away with it. Similarly, the persona in Robert Browning’s poem ‘The Laboratory’ wants to murder an innocent woman due to her lover’s promiscuous behaviour. During the opening stanza, the persona reveals her scheme using the sentence: ‘…the poison to poison her… he is with her.’ She wants to murder this woman for being with
Browning uses this structure in order to give the sense of a story and time passing. The theme of time passing is symbolic of a countdown to a death – it foreshadows the murder. A semantic field of wealth arises with adjective-noun combinations such as ‘pound at thy powder’ and ‘delicate droplet. Alliteration is also used in both these quotes which creates a frivolous tone. There is a contrast between the luxury of the Court (jewels, fans, etc) and the laboratory, but the speaker describes the poisons as if she were describing jewels ‘exquisite blue’, ‘delicate