"The Lady's Dressing Room"

“The Lady’s Dressing Room” is one poem in Jonathan Swift’s series of excremental poems. Swift holds nothing back in this poem from the view of a young man, Strephon, who ventures into a woman’s chamber to look around. Swift then goes into vivid detail of the horrid things Strephon sees. Swift says, “A paste of composition rare: sweat, dandruff, powder, lead, and hair. He basically is saying the woman’s chamber is gross. “But oh! It turned poor Strephon’s bowels: when he beheld and smelled the towels”, states Swift. Swift is possibly using this poem to say at least women are doing what it takes to please the man, or he is basically just bashing women. As the poem points to the idea that women are gross, it also points to the idea that sometimes being nosy can make you see things you do not want to see. The reason Strephon ventures into the chamber is unknown but when he leaves the chamber he has seen things that will always affect him. Swift says in the end of the poem, as Strephon is walking down the street, every woman he sees he connects with what he last saw in the chamber. The poem is entertaining but disturbing at the same time. Montague’s response to this poem is the funnier of the two.