Pope pays attention to his appearance and wishes to construct his image in a way that will function advantageously in the sphere of the marketplace. He fights to self-authorize himself through an imitation of Classical literature. His portraits represent his body, mainly head and shoulders, in a perfect Greco-Roman style.

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However, his constant modeling of his body image means that Pope is continually creating himself and is thus incomplete in his own structure. This links him directly to the grotesque image that “reflects a phenomenon in transformation, an as yet unfinished metamorphosis, of death and birth, growth and becoming.” 16 

    To control his image Pope tries to remove all signs of his deformity, exposing his monumental body and static posture to the public sphere. However, in contrast to the canons of classical aesthetics, and since “The more general sense . . . which [the word grotesque] has developed by the early eighteenth century is . . . that of ‘ridiculous, distorted, unnatural’ . . . ‘an absurdity, a distortion of nature,’”17 Pope’s body is grotesque. Due to the Pott's disease he looks abnormal. His body is transforming with age and becoming increasingly related to the carnivalesque. Therefore, Pope may be described as “[occupying] a cultural position that might be read as 'feminized,' in contrast to the normative performance of masculinity dominant in a patriarchal culture.”18 In this sense when Pope tries to occupy the public sphere with his manly, classical image, the grotesque becomes physical and feminine. Additionally, the poet becomes dependant on female attendance when his body fails him, which feminizes him even more – his body is in constant need of female support.