Friday, July 6, 2012

What does the poem "The Lady's Dressing Room" by Jonathan Swift mean? What is the poem trying to prove? What is the message of the poem?

Like many of Swift's works, this poem is satirical. The topic of the poem is just what the title says: he's describing what happens in a lady's dressing room. However, the first lines signal the satirical approach: five hours to get ready? This is hammered home by the evocation of a goddess, as if the women were divine, an image Swift then contrasts with both agricultural byproducts (dung, hard work, smell) and a kind of industrial production. He's saying how much work it is to make women beautiful, and how disgusting the work behind the scenes is.

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