Carol Ann Duffy's "Salome"- Language, Form, Structure, Themes

“I’d done it before (and doubtless I’ll do it again, sooner or later)”. In Carol Ann Duffy’s sinister “Salome”, the themes of power, callousness, and threat are indicated within the opening line to the unsuspecting reader. The protagonist instantly shows the most supremacy and dominance through the use of the first person and the fact that only they know what they mean when referring to “done it before”. The brackets in the second line give a conversational and almost careless tone, as if the narrator were breaking off in their introduction to tell the reader something else; with the words “sooner or later” introducing the poem’s main theme of chilling suspense and threat.
Following on from the conversational theme, the protagonist moves on to reveal the setting: “woke up with a head on the pillow beside me”, which implies that these two people have slept together, and that it was possibly a one night stand: “-whose?- what did it matter?”. While these two rhetorical questions contribute to the theme of the protagonist calmly conversing with the reader, the questions can also be interpreted as this person’s possible insanity and their incapability to complete a full sentence without breaking off or going on a different track; an indication of their unsteady and complicated character.
It is in the seventh line of the first stanza where Duffy uses important choices of words to give descriptions different meanings and allowing the reader to draw up their own interpretations, introducing the theme of ambiguity. For instance, on first reading “the reddish beard”, the reader may think that the man’s natural hair colour is simply auburn or red where of course towards the end of the poem they learn that it is actually blood. This links with the description of his dark hair: “rather matted”, where it is common for most people’s hair to be matted when they first wake in the morning, only his hair is matted possibly due to the blood or sweat caused by his likely fear.
Towards the end of the first stanza, the protagonist refers back to what they did with the man: “and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew how to flatter… which I kissed…” Again, the “beautiful crimson mouth” can relate back to the blood imagery, with the use of the ellipses showing the person wistfully thinking about the past events; creating a nostalgic tone as their mind goes back in time. The ellipses also represent their thoughts slowing down after become rushed and frantic through the enjambments and frequent use of semi-colons and commas with no full-stops to represent pause. As well as this, the ellipses could also have been used to set a calm and paced tone, contrasting with the brutal sounds of the previous assonances used: matter, matted, lighter, laughter.
Duffy sets the bitter theme of chill and cold in the oxymoron: “colder than pewter. Strange. What was his name? Peter?” Being a metal, the pewter represents the man as something hard, cold, and stiff; linking with the ambiguous theme since he is dead and so therefore he would be cold. The person’s pause is shown through the full-stop after the word “strange” and refers back to the un-nerving and disturbing tone as it shows them considering what has happened and taking their time as they think.
The story of “Salome” goes back in time to Christian mythology where Salome was the daughter of Herodias and the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee in Palestine. St. John the Baptist condemned the marriage as he saw it as incestuous since Herod was the half-brother of Herodias’ previous husband (Philip); causing Herod to imprison John but fearing to have him killed because John was so popular. Salome was then pressured by her mother to ‘seduce’ Herod by performing a dance before him and then, (at her mother’s request), demanding John’s head on a platter, and Herod did so.
The Religious imagery is shown in the beginning of the second stanza: “Simon? Andrew? John?” where all these names are the names of Saints, John relating to John the Baptist, whilst proving the woman’s sheer calculating and menacing character as she condemns what are represented as “good” men. Going by the story, the reader can now assume the protagonist is probably a woman- although it is possible the person can be a homosexual man, it is unlikely.
Duffy gives the reader a hint to the woman’s personality in the line: “I knew I’d feel better for tea, dry toast, no butter”, where through this it is implied that her life is dry and un-flavoured and that she herself cannot be buttered up. The reference to a Victorian theme is shown in the next line: “so rang for the maid” and again shows the woman’s authority and power as she doesn’t even have to communicate with the maid.
The structure of the maid’s work is set out in what would be her rhythm as she’s working: “her innocent clatter, her clearing of clutter, her regional platter.” The end sounds “er” give a brutal and sudden sound and are also onomatopoeia’s as they match the sounds that the maid would be making. The theme of identity loss is noted in the second stanza, where the woman misses out “I” in sentences where it is needed: “so rang for the maid” and “where just what needed”. This can mean she either doesn’t want to sound like she has to do something in order to get what she wants, and therefore keeping control of her powerful image; or simply because she may be losing this power as the truth is starting to unravel.
Sex and impurity are the main themes for stanza three, where the woman is represented as dirty: “I needed to clean up my act”, where the line: “cut out the booze and the fags and the sex” indicate her life as meaningless and insufficient as these are slang words and fail to produce class or real pleasure in their meaning. The structure of the line is continuous and set out like a routine, and then stops abruptly with the “yes.”, as she pauses to consider a new lifestyle.
“It was time to turf out the blighter” refers back to the theme of power as the man is seen as a customer with the woman appearing in complete control, with anthropomorphism used in the line “the beater or biter, who’d come like a lamb to the slaughter to Salome’s bed”. Finally, the woman is given some identity, in which she refers herself to Salome with the power of seduction and lust to defeat what is portrayed as her feeble and naïve prey.
The format of the fourth and final stanza is structured differently compared with the previous stanzas. There is no specific format in the stanzas as they are set out carelessly with no real direction or rhyming scheme, representing the woman’s causal approach to what she did. But the fourth stanza is set out in the format of a quatrain, with the indication of insanity as suggested in the beginning: “I saw my eyes glitter”. The line “I flung back the sticky red sheets” indicate her as a proud chef or waiter presenting what they have produced in a proud flourish, with the possibility that what she has done to the man happened the night before, “sticky”, as blood is sticky when it’s clotting, so the reader knows it’s old. The third line of the stanza shows that the woman has not changed as she was in the beginning, as she still breaks off whilst in the middle of concluding her murder, and presenting the final theme of menacing satisfaction: “and there, like I said- and ain’t life a bitch- was his head on a platter”.