Jonathan Swift "The Lady's Dressing Room"

I absolutely loved this poem. I thought it was so funny and sarcastic and everything I love in a poem. If all the poems we read were like this one, I might actually enjoy reading them!

He starts off by sayinghow l how Celia takes five hours to dress, which I think is a little extreme, but I get that he is trying to say how women take forever to get ready (which most of us do).

He then breaks into her room to look around. He finds her dirty smock with armpit stains and says that few words are best to describe it.

I was cracking up reading this because it kind of reminds me of that show that used to come on MTV, "Room Raiders" and the people go in and look all over your room. This is what it reminds me of because had she known that he was gonna snoop I'm sure she would have made sure to not leave stuff like that laying around.

Anyway he goes on to how men who call her clean, are telling lies. This really makes me think about people I know. They look nice and clean when I see them but whenever I go to their houses its disguisting and dirty and it really makes me have a totally different outlook on them.

Then he finds her dirty combs with dandruff and dirt in them. That is disguisting! First of all, does she not wash her hair? I have never had dirt in my combs! (well unless you brush it when you are at the beach or something, but thats different) and if you do have dirt or dandruff or whatever in your comb wouldn't you wash it out? I sure the hell wouldn't leave my combs dirty. THats disguisting.

Then he finds a towel with oil all over it lol why wouldn't she throw it away? This lady is really gross!

"Here Gallypots and Vials plac'd,

Some fill'd with washes, some with Paste,

Some with Pomatum, Paints and Slops,

And Ointments good for scabby Chops."

This was one of my favorite quotes because a lot of women have something that they wouldn't want a guy to know that she uses. Whether its something stupid like pimple ointment or whatever, it can be embarrasing to some people, and I think that Celia would be quite embarrassed to know that he found her foot ointment lol

Now my favorite quote of the entire poem is this one about him smelling the towels

But oh! it turn'd poor Strephon's Bowels,

When he beheld and smelt the Towels,

It turned his bowels! This Swift guy is a trip. But I totally get what he means, I mean when you smell something so bad that it seriously makes your stomach turn. Like throw up! I mean I can't even imagine how bad those towels had to smell for that to happen to him!

Now why wouldn't she throw her snot covered towels away?

So I think the underlying message of the poem is that women take forever to get ready, actually making themselves fake. Women spend so much time putting make-up on, getting dressed, doing their hair, and whatever else, but that doesn't mean that they are actually clean people. It's all kind of an act. But it does show the extent that women are willing to go to look nice for people. All in all I really enjoyed this poem and I thought it was hilarious!