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Tiffany James

Mr. McCauley

Foundations of Criticism

14 October 2013

How Our Actions Decide Who We Are

Queer theory is “influenced by deconstruction, feminism, gay and lesbian studies,

psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, and other postmodern theories, queer theory questions the very

terms we use to describe ourselves such as heterosexual or homosexual” (Bressler 223). Queer

focuses on "mismatches" between sex, gender and desire. In Jonathan Swift’s poem “The Lady’s

Dressing Room” it is possible to see how gender is constructed/ deconstructed as a performance

rather than as a biological fact, and how gender is something that someone does, rather than what

someone is.

In Swift’s poem he focuses on the deconstruction of gender and how it is a performance.

However, the poem starts off treating gender as a biological factor. In the first line the speaker

says, “five hours, (and who can do it less in)” (Swift 1). Even though the beginning of the poem

starts off with a line that society sees as a biological factor, that women naturally take forever to

get dressed, that is not what the majority of the poem focuses on. Around line 7, “stole in, and

took a strict survey” (Swift 7), the poem begins to clue the reader into the fact the poem is about

to analyze every little thing that Celia (women), does (do) to create the image that she has. The

first thing Strephon, the man going through Celia’s room, sees is “a dirty smock … / beneath the

arm-pits well besmeared” (Swift 11-12) and then he “swears how damnably the men lie,/ in

calling Celia sweet and cleanly” (Swift 17-18). The sweat stains on the smock show how women

are not perfect creatures that look and smell clean all the time like men seem to think. Women

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use combs for various reasons every day, but Celia’s were “fill’d up with dirt so closely fixt,/ no

brush could force a way betwixt” (Swift 21-22), made up of “a past of composition rare,/ sweat,

dandruff, powder, lead and hair” (Swift 23-24). These lines are the perfect example of how

gender is being deconstructed from how dirt filled the combs were to exactly what the dirt in the

combs were composed of.

In the poem gender can be deconstructed as a performance; just like in the poem gender

is what someone does not what someone is. For example, “a forehead cloth with oyl upon’t/ to

smooth the wrinkles on her front” (Swift 25-26), shows the reader that women do not start off

with perfect looking skin, but that they must apply creams and ointments to the skin to make it

look so smooth and fetching. Strephon then finds

“a pair of tweezers…

to pluck her brows in arches round,

or hairs that sink the forehead low,

or on her chin like bristles grow” (Swift 55-58).

When the reader sees the phrase “a pair of tweezers” it automatically makes them think of facial

grooming which is another thing that the female gender does. The speaker goes on to tell of

“a glass that can to sight disclose,

the smallest worm in Celia’s nose,

and faithfully direct her nail

to squeeze it out from head to tail” (Swift 63-66).

The mention of “a glass” in the context of the poem gives the reader the impression that the

speaker is talking about a magnifying glass and that “the smallest worm” is her nose hair that she

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feels she must pluck to stay beautiful. This is just another ritual that women follow categorizes

them as being a part of the female gender.

Throughout Swift’s poem it was easy to see how gender was deconstructed as a

performance and how gender is what someone does. The construction of gender of the female

variety in the poem is similar to the construction of the female gender in society today because

women still put on a show when they leave the house. Just like in the poem women today use

ointments and creams to fix their complexions and they pluck hairs in all areas of the body to

look more polished and clean. However, the main point is that women have not changed over the

years because it is what they do that puts them in the female gender category.

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Works Cited

Bressler, Charles. Queer Theory. Literary Criticism. 5th ed. United States: Pearson Education,

Inc., 2011. 220-229. Print.

Swift, Jonathan. “The Lady’s Dressing Room.”