Pandora's "Box" Poem

Jonathan Swift takes an interesting spin on Pandora’s box in the poem “The Lady’s Dressing Room”, this piece was first published in 1732 however can still be parallel to modern society. The poem takes a humorous tone discussing the side of femininity. Females, especially those of higher class were described as having a godlike beauty, but to achieve this high level of beauty, women take hours to get ready for events or dates. The author critiques the constructed nature of female beauty, to convey to women to stop trying to reach men’s unrealistic expectations of beauty, and on the other side, to warn men to not venture into a women's dressing room. Strephon, who ventured into Celia’s dressing describes to his horror the dressing room as “begummed, besmattered, and beslimed. With dirt, and sweat, and ear-wax grimed”, describing the room as Pandora’s box, and the reality of the lack of effortless beauty of women, that these women are nothing but mortal, and have to try for hours to reach unattainable beauty, is paralleled to the “universal crew of humane evils upwards flew”, in other words, the effort women take to look beautiful is similar to the evils that spewed out of Pandora’s box that Zues locked away when opened by Pandora herself. This dramatic poem takes a humorous tone in describing the slap of reality a man goes through when unearthing the effort it takes to reach an unattainable beauty standard.