Jonathan Swift The Lady Dressing Room Analysis

In the writing piece “the lady’s dressing room” by Jonathan swift. Swift criticizes the standards that men bring upon women and the pressure that women bring upon themselves to meet those standards. The author conveys his message in various satirical way, including the vivid descriptions of the horrid secrets held within a lady’s dressing room. Swift discourses this issue through a Juvenalian form of satire using hyperbole to target both men and women, along with the use of distortion to emphasize the number of things that women use to look like, what is characterized as pretty, and the shock that men experience when they find out about a woman’s true nature. Swift presents his writing piece by introducing Celia, a woman described as “The

Strephon ultimately leaves the room when he finds out that Celia poops and that she performs bodily human functions and is not a perfect porcelain goddess “array’d in lace, brocades and tissues”. The ending finishes off with the final judgment of men when Celia find out about Strephon snooping in her room. Irony and hyperbole interconnect in the last paragraph in order to support the woman’s side. It’s as if Celia rises and ignores what Strephon must have seen. She addresses that he should be blessed to be able to see “such gaudy tulips rais’d from dung” which is ironic because flowers aren’t raised from feces and flowers often portray beauty. By using such contrast Swift is able to reconnect with his initial paragraph and prior points that women are subjective to the constant pressure of looking like a ‘flower’ or a perfect, flawless, human being when in reality they do not naturally look like that and which is why 5 hours is the least amount of time needed to be given to them to live up to the standards set by men. In all, Swift uses hyperbole, irony, and distortion to expose both, male and female and the standards that they selves for others or themselves. It proves both sides in a balanced organized way and is able to carry out each technique effectively to show it’s audience to not allow the manipulation of other to drive them into fixing themselves for the sake of