Jonathan Swift Misogynistic Poetry Essay

The horrors of Swift’s scatology poetry has had profound effects on countless who have read it. Each of his unvarnished pieces leaves individuals exposed to a reality that society readily denies. Yet it is only recently that Swift has no longer been charged with “perversity, morbidity, and misogyny.” Today, these types of poetry emphasize the “moral approach,” but do not always address the author’s “heavy reliance in ‘The Lady’s Dressing Room’ and ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph’ on filth, deformity, and foul orders” (Sena 347). Due to this failure, many are left believing that Swift’s terrible depiction of women must be linked to his misogyny. However, while many critics accuse Jonathan Swift of misogynistic works, in two of his better-known
scatology poems, he uses the blunt realities of women’s life in a satirical setting in order to provoke change for their way of life. This is not due to his own perception of women, but rather due to the hypocrisies that they are often met with. Through the factual yet brutal depictions of women in both “The Lady’s Dressing Room” as well as “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed,” Swift is able to arouse both disgust and pity for the demanding beautification of women of all classes. In “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” Swift is able to use reality to reveal the grotesque realities of both a lady’s private quarters as well as a man’s reaction to them. However, as critics such as Hermann Real and Heinz J. Vienken noticed, “in order to be a satirist, [Swift] did not have to distort, to exaggerate, to take recourse to hyperbole or caricature; he only needed to ‘reproduce’ empirical reality, to ‘paint’ the picture of life as it was” (44). Therefore by using legitimate and true grotesque behavior, Swift is able to comment on the double-standard placed on women’s beauty. This can first be seen in the combination of bodily products as listed by the poet. After examining the combs, Strephon discovers “[a] paste of composition rare,/ Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair” (lns 23-24). Although disgusting, this is to be expected when the human body rarely bathes and instead applies a multitude of powders to prevent oiliness or to emphasize paleness. Similarly, when Strephon “smelled the towels,/ Begummed, besmattered, and beslimed/ With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed” (lns 44-46), Swift includes materials that would regularly be wiped off of the human body. A woman is not a “goddess” (ln 3) as they are frequently labeled, but rather human, and Swift refuses to depict them as anything more than mortal. Swift continues in this vein by examining the complex relationship a woman might have with her pet: “There night-gloves made of Tripsy’s hide,/ Bequeathed by Tripsy when she died,/ With puppy water, beauty’s help/ Distilled from Tripsy’s darling whelp” (lns 29-32). By revealing the many uses that a woman might have for her pet, Swift penetrates the taboo of admitting such behavior. In addition to being a status symbol, a puppy would be used as both the materials that her night-gloves might be made out of and also as a cosmetic aid “which was widely applied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (Real and Vienken 45). Although disgusting as well as a bit morbid, Swift is calling attention to an increased number of contradictions that exist within women’s lives. While they are supposed to be divine and maternal, women are simply human beings who rely on a multitude of consumeristic and disturbing substances to amplify their beauty. However, it is not only the women who have clear contradictions in their behavior, but also the men who discover the realities of their beauty regiments. In “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” Swift isn’t only commenting on Celia, but also Strephon’s reactions to these realizations.
This can be seen in the comparison of his snooping with the opening of Pandora’s Box: “As from within Pandora’s box,/ When Epimetheus op’d the locks,/ A sudden universal crew/ Of human evils upwards flew” (lns 83-86).
Through this, Swift is able to comment on two separate components of the poem for he is both once again exposing the distance between the Gods and mortals as well as clarifying who this poem is criticizing. Due to the oral history of ancient myths, there are often numerous tellings that exist. By Swift choosing the retelling that has Epimetheus, the husband of Pandora, being overcome with curiosity and releasing “human evils,” he is clearly insinuating who is guilty in this poem. This continues until the end of the poem: “He soon would learn to think like me,/ And bless his ravished sight to see/ Such order from confusion sprung,/ Such gaudy tulips raised from dung” (lns 141-144). Although some critics do use the close of the poem to support the argument of the misogynistic nature of the piece, it is clear that he is still placing the blame on Strephon. The narrator is actively disagreeing with him and wishes to educate him on this fact: “He soon would learn to think like me.” Additionally, he is applying reason to the disagreement, since women both applied excrement to themselves in their beautification and produced it themselves. Yet nonetheless, Swift recognizes that they are still beautiful, mortal creatures. Swift’s dependency on both truth telling
as well as criticism of the male gaze reveals who “The Lady’s Dressing Room” is critical of, and that is the very expectations placed on women to use any means necessary to beautify themselves. Swift’s poem, “A Beautiful Young Nymph,” is equally critical of this issue, although it is focused another, lower class of woman, the prostitute. Once again, the poet is dependent on the reproduction of “empirical reality” (Real and Vienken 44) in order to reveal the brutal expectations of a woman dependent on her beauty to survive, yet who is met with the cruelties of such an occupation. By focusing on both the physical and the mental toll that sex work can have on a woman, Swift is attempting to criticize the beauty standards as well as hardships that prostitutes face. He starts by focusing on the effect such work has had on her body. She must pick “out a crystal eye” (ln 11) and untwist “a wire; and from her gums/ A set of teeth completely comes” (lns 19-20). Through such descriptions, the hardness and decay of her body can be physically felt, while her own senses remain dulled. This continues in the description of her torso, from which “[u]nlaces next her steel-ribbed bodice; Which by the operator’s skill,/ Press down the lumps, the hollows fill” (lns 24-26). From this, the reader is able to obtain the idea that her very insides have been destroyed by her career. She’s become deformed, almost maimed. This includes the effects of the sex itself, which has left her with “shakers, issues, running sores,/ Effects of many a sad disaster” (lns 30-31). By including sexually transmitted diseases beyond a passing reference to a spot, Swift is exposing his reader to a taboo subject. Yet his disregard and lack of warning would force each one to come across the harsh realities of such diseases. This reveals who he is attempting to inspire into action, everyone. Although explicit in her physical ailments, Swift is able to reveal just how dire the life of an aged prostitute is. Swift refuses to stop at the physical signs of hardship, however, and he continues to move onto the mental ones as well. Once the nymph, Corrina, finally sleeps, Swift uses her dreams to reveal the psychological toil that prostitution has had on her. She dreams “[o]f Bridewell and the Compter dreams,/ and feels the lash, and faintly screams” (lns 41-42). By supplying such sensory descriptions to the reference of the prisons, the poet is to evoke pity and to call into question whether this is a just punishment for prostitutes. This continues when in her dreams:
Struck with fear, her fancy runs
On watchmen, constables, and duns,
From whom she meets with frequent rubs;
But never from religious clubs;
Whose favor she is sure to find,
Because she pays them back in kind. (lns 51-56)
By being able to contrast those who are tasked with the protection of the city’s inhabitants, Swift is able to reveal how all of society has failed every sex worker. Some of her biggest fears are the period’s equivalent to police. Comparatively, those tasked with guarding the spirit are some of her customers. No one wants to help the urban prostitute. Throughout “A Beautiful Young Nymph,” Swift reveals the actual hardships of the prostitute, both in terms of psychological and physical tolls. Although misconstrued for centuries, Swift’s scatology poem is meant to liberate women from the double-standards that existed surrounding their beautification.
Women’s inability to admit to their humanity removed their subjectivity and allowed men to demand unattainable standards of them. Additionally, Swift also reveals the similarities of women of different classes. Regardless of their social status or natural appearance, all were demanded to apply countless substances and deny their flaws existence. Only through the descriptives horrors and inclusion of the unmentionables are able to achieve such impactful social commentary that is characteristic of scatology
poems.