The Seventh Veil of Salome

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and death.

Vera is one of the novel’s protagonists. She is a young Mexican woman who is cast in the lead role of Salome in the film The Seventh Veil of Salome. Vera is beautiful and charismatic but also relatively modest and unassuming. She is accustomed to being compared unfavorably to her sister and has never been interested in being in the spotlight. Her cousin Celia describes Vera as “this delicate, ethereal creature. Poised and quiet” (66). When she is thrust unexpectedly into the role of a burgeoning celebrity, she struggles with life in the limelight, as she does not like being the center of attention or having her actions scrutinized.

Although Vera often wants to please people around her, she is also self-aware, stubborn, and unwilling to compromise her values, which makes her one vehicle through which the novel explores the Consequences of Women’s Ambition and Desire. Vera has a vision of what a loving and passionate relationship can look like, and she breaks off her first engagement because she cannot tolerate a romance that she does not find exciting. As she explains to Jay, “I wanted to love him; I couldn’t” (178).