ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

Rereading “The Ladies’ Dressing Room,” I realize that the poem is not about two lovers at all, but about a john frustrated with the quality of a prostitute. Strephon feels he has been had, having to pay so much for a defective product. He finds Celia is worth less than he paid, and so feels cheated, because she uses the bathroom, has dirty stockings, leaves hair in the brush, and wears makeup. In short, he finds her humanity disgusting. In my opinion, he has no right to object if he still chooses to purchase her services. Swift’s poem is misogynistic, but still has some self-conscious humor. Strephon does still choose to sleep with Celia despite her imperfect hygiene. In the end, he is the butt of the joke: men are not picky: When Celia in her Glory shows, [135]
If Strephon would but stop his Nose;
(Who now so impiously blasphemes
Her Ointments, Daubs, and Paints and Creams,
Her Washes, Slops, and every Clout,
With which he makes so foul a Rout;) [140]
He soon would learn to think like me,
And bless his ravisht Sight to see
Such Order from Confusion sprung,
Such gaudy Tulips rais’d from Dung.”
In the end, Celia is still a woman, and Strephon a man. No matter how disgusting her hygiene habits, or how ugly or fat, men will sleep with anyone if they want it badly enough. So, when Celia finally “in her glory shows,” he must learn to stop his nose and go through with it.
Lady Montague’s poem is a counter to Swift’s male-oriented view of prostitution. Montague writes that the cause of Strephon’s ire at Celia, which led him to bash her hygiene, was that she wouldn’t sleep with him. Montague accurately takes the standpoint that the most likely reason for a man to bash a woman is because he has been spurned. It is a direct affront to a man’s masculinity when a woman will not sleep with him, and he in turn must undermine her value as a woman. This, according to Montague, is what would lead someone like Smith to write a poem about a woman called “The Lady’s Dressing Room.” Smith was attempting to make up for his own loss of esteem by devaluing someone else. If romance is a game of relative value, then this stance makes since.
Rereading both poems, the most important words are still “Strephon,” “Celia,” and “Gold.” This is because the poems are about a competition for value in relationships between a man and a woman. This competition for worth dictates who has the upper hand in a sexual partnership, or even between a prostitute and a john. Swift writes from the point of a generic male, Strephon, who feels that he is worth more than he is getting. Montague provides another scenario where Celia will not sleep with Strephon because he is not good enough for her. Though each author takes opposing viewpoints, both poems center around the same struggle: the economic battle of the sexes.