Salome Lesson Plan

Examine Wilde's use of repetition in today's reading. How does this device function in the play thus far? Which characters speak lines in repetition, and what traits are possessed by these characters? Can you think of any other settings in which repetition is used as a device?

Salome's repetition of variations on the line, "Suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan" lays the ground for one of the play's major motifs of Salome's forbidden desire and also sets a rhythmic pulse throughout the scene. But the rhythm is not flowing; rather, it is halting, depicting Salome's deafness to any message she does not want to hear. No matter how many times Iokanaan rejects her, she acts...