The Lady’s Dressing Room Essay Sample

The poem “The Lady’s Dressing Room” as written by Jonathan Swift; satirizes both men’s expectation and women’s vain efforts to match the ideal image towards men. The poem articulates this as the illusion that women put up in real life to be realistic in perfecting their images. Swift begins a vivid description of his mistress ideal image generally. However, not illustrated what triggered Strephon; the poem chronicles Strephon’s misadventure in his lover vacant dressing room. Strephon as he goes through the content of her room, he encounters repulsing objects in the room. These objects were: dirt-filled combs, sweaty smocks, oily cloths, dog intestine cosmetics derived, muck and grimy towels. Through this discovery Strephon concludes that Celia who he thought to a ‘goddess’ was not. This can be illustrated in line 118 of the poem “oh Celia, Celia, Celia shits!”
After this discovery of what Strephon describes as “Celia’s nauseating dressing room” he completely changes how he previously viewed women. Ironically the ‘goddess’ he saw before in women now Strephon described them as ‘painted faces and powdered wigs of grime beneath.’ Through the poem’s bodily functions grotesque treatment it is evident that Strephon was highly disappointed in his lover’s vacant dressing room. This turn of events can be justified that Strephon could be disappointed with his lover may due to hurtful break-up or departure of a loved one. Critically, the dressing room is vacant thus showing that the lady, Strephon’s lover had moved out thus the discovery. It is absurd that Strephon vied Celia as a ‘goddess’ when she was around after leaving the room vacant is when Strephon advances the revelations. Personally I can conclude that Strephon was had broken thus why he developed such an image of Celia.

The poem’s satire

Swift employs Juvenalian satire to articulate the intended meaning and view of his poem. At first, swift describes Celia’s beauty to the extent of referring to his mistress as a ‘goddess’. The poem basically ridicules women; exposing their incompetency as he harshly describes them as “painted faces and powdered wigs of grime beneath.” As the poem comes to an end swift suggests that, “young men ignore stench and illusionary accept the painted face and enjoy womanhood charms.”
The poem’s moral lesson is that men should not concentrate on the outward appearances of women. Outward appearances can be deceiving since the beauty is at times achieved through the use of cosmetics. Once these cosmetics wear out, the real ugly woman gets exposed. The poem drives home the point that a woman’s beauty is from the heart. Outward appearances are deceiving. It is only inner beauty that can endure the test of time. Men should seek beauty from the hearts of their women.