Hello everyone, I am Dhruvita Dhameliya. Today I am writing about Jonathan Swift's satirical work 'A tale of a tub' and symbols.
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, essayist, and political pamphleteer. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. He spent much of his early adult life in England before returning to Dublin to serve as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin for the last 30 years of his life. It was this later stage when he would write most of his greatest works. Best known as the author of 'A Modest Proposal (1729), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and A Tale Of A Tub (1704), Swift is widely acknowledged as the greatest prose satirist in the history of English literature.
In 1704, Swift anonymously released A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books. Tub, although widely popular with the masses, was harshly disapproved of by the Church of England. Ostensibly, it criticized religion, but Swift meant it as a parody of pride. Nonetheless, his writings earned him a reputation in London, and when the Tories came into power in 1710, they asked him to become editor of the Examiner, their official paper. After a time, he became fully immersed in the political landscape and began writing some of the most cutting and well-known political pamphlets of the day, including The Conduct of the Allies, an attack on the Whigs. Privy to the inner circle of Tory government, Swift laid out his private thoughts and feelings in a stream of letters to his beloved Stella. They would later be published as The Journal to Stella.
Jonathan Swift wrote A Tale of a Tub (published in 1704) not only to expound upon the hypocrisy of religion in early 18th century England, but to explore ideas about critics, oration, ancient and modern philosophies, digressions, and the nature of writing itself. These themes are all underscored with a satirical tone that takes religion, authors, and critics to task.
The title refers to the tub that sailors used to toss out to distract whales from tipping their ships. The ship represents the status quo of the English government and its religious structure, while the whale is a symbol for the new ideas and controversies attempting to rock the ship: The government must keep dissent like Swift’s at bay.
The “A Tale of a Tub” sections describe the lives of three brothers:
1)Peter - Roman catholic
2)Martin - Anglican Church or the church of England
3) Jack - protestant church
Their father dies and they receive his will. He leaves them three coats, which the will stipulates that they should not alter or else they will ruin their futures. However, shoulder knots come into vogue, and the brothers, led by Peter, who represents the Catholic Church, begin to add to their coats.
The narrator moves on to define critics and critique. The true critic, whether ancient or modern, is able to locate flaws that nobody else can find and takes pleasure in it. Writers should view them like mirrors and use this reflection to fix their work.
Back in “A Tale of a Tub,” Peter is gaining more power over his brothers. Martin, who represents the Church of England, and Jack, who represents Puritanism, are both controlled by Peter. When they finally object, he kicks them out of the house, and they must go off on their own. This is symbolic of the Reformation. After this, there is a chapter that discusses the difference between ancient and modern philosophies as well as the art of writing a successful preface.
We then look back in on the brothers, who are trying to fix their coats by taking the extra ribbons, buttons, and lace off, an act which causes damage. Martin does it carefully, but Jack is careless and gets holes in his coat. This represents the differences in their religious outlooks and the extent to which they are deconstructing the old Catholic teachings.
Swift then moves on to a digression praising digressions. In fact, he is using these tangents to highlight ideas that support his main argument about the ridiculousness of religious infighting and dogma. Indeed, the brothers descend into this very type of argument and are constantly at odds. Peter and Martin vie for the attentions of various monarchs, while Jack becomes more extreme, developing an aversion to music. He also has his own set of followers who believe that they have an essence within themselves that must be released for the members to learn from each other. In the end, the author loses his train of thought. We can assume that the brothers argue into perpetuity.
That is story written by Swift, but in this simple story of three brothers he talked about many things parallel like religious, politics and social. He gave many symbols. Symbols are like that...
Three Coats : Three religious practices :
In the story three coats present three religious practicesThe three brothers' coats are the central symbol of A Tale of a Tub. Outwardly plain and simple, the coats are the brothers' sole inheritance from their father, who promises that they will last for a lifetime if cared for properly. In his will, he warns them against altering the coats in any way. These coats represent the practices of Christianity as originally revealed and commanded by God and as stipulated in the Bible (the father's will). Like the early Church written about in the New Testament, the brothers initially do a good job of sticking to the rules laid down by the will. It isn't long, however, before they are finding ways to excuse themselves from following the will too scrupulously when it conflicts with their immediate desires. This behavior is dramatized as a gradual altering of the coats in spite of the father's express wish to the contrary.
The individual alterations represent the different ways in which Christianity, in Swift's view, deviated from the practices and beliefs given in the Bible. The "flame-colored satin" that makes up the coats' lining, for instance, represents the concept of purgatory, regarded in the Catholic tradition as a place of purification for souls not yet worthy of heaven but not condemned to hell. To Swift, an Anglican living in post-Reformation England, this was a false doctrine that lacked any demonstrable basis in Scripture. The "Indian figures" embroidered on the coats are the statues and stained-glass images present in many Catholic churches, which Swift (like many other Protestants) saw as incompatible with the Bible's warnings against graven images. By the time the brothers finally realize the error of their ways, their coats (i.e., their practice of Christianity) have become barely recognizable.
Midway through the main narrative, however, Martin and Jack undergo a change of heart when a breach erupts between them and Peter (who claims to be the oldest). By showing how the brothers react to this disagreement, Swift praises or criticizes the three main Christian traditions represented in the England of his day. In the pre-Reformation era, the brothers were all prone to the same extravagances, adorning their coats with lace, fringe, and many other ornaments. Peter, who represents Catholicism, sticks to those extravagances and even multiplies them; he deliberately avoids consulting the will to see whether he is going astray. Martin, named after Martin Luther, represents the moderate Protestant tradition. He carefully and diligently strips away the forbidden ornaments from his coat while taking care not to harm the underlying fabric. Where something cannot be removed without damaging the original coat, he reluctantly lets it remain.
Jack, in contrast, rips away every shred of embroidery and fringe, tearing up the original underlying fabric in the process. His brand of reform, which Swift identifies with the Dissenters, is aggressive, destructive, and haphazard. Ultimately, Swift condemns Jack as motivated more by his hatred of Peter (i.e., resentment of the Catholic Church) than by a concern to live a moral life. He is a reactionary anti-Catholic rather than a Christian in his own right. However and significantly, Jack's extremes end up closely resembling Peter's as the rags worn by the one man come to look like the fringed finery worn by the other. Thus, both are satirized.
WIll :
The father's will represents the Bible, which Swift regards as Christianity's fundamental instruction manual. Swift's paramount claim in A Tale of a Tub is that the Bible should be consulted for basic, immutable guidance on all Church matters. Practices prohibited by the Bible cannot and should not be embraced by the Church, while practices required by the Bible cannot simply be set aside. In their youth, the three brothers exemplify this kind of Christianity. The more closely the brothers adhere to the prescriptions of the will, the happier they seem to be and the more peaceful their consciences are.
All three brothers start off faithfully following the will, but they are gradually corrupted by outside influences. They stray from its obvious intent and, increasingly, from its directly stated rules, becoming ridiculous and superficial in the process. This behavior is provoked by a desire to fit in with the rest of the world, as illustrated in the middle of Chapter 2. There, the brothers realize that they will have to get creative if they want to give the appearance of following their father's wishes while actually ignoring them. They use Latinate terms to add an aura of respectability to their dubious behavior: failing to find permission to change their coats "totidem verbis" ("in so many words"), they start looking "totidem syllabis" ("in so many syllables"). Finally, they declare that their father's will allows them to add shoulder knots "totidem literis"
In the case of the allegorical story of the three brothers, the ultimate pre-text is the Bible: the father's last recorded words take the form of a will, a dead letter, defining and confining the ways in which the sons are to live their lives:
'You will find in my Will (here it is) full Instructions in every Particular
concerning the Wearing and Management of your Coats; wherein you must be
very exact, to avoid the Penalties I have appointed for every transgression
or Neglect, upon which your future Fortunes will entirely depend'.
because it contains the letters S, H, O, U, L, D, E, and R.
Peter, the most scholarly of the brothers, undergoes great intellectual contortions to avoid the document's clear restrictions. In addition to the "totidem literis" episode above, he declares that certain premises must be added to the will or else "multa absurda sequerentur" ("many absurdities will follow"). (He never specifies what those absurdities might be.) All of Peter's interpretive practices, along with the terms used to describe them, ultimately derive from a Catholic tradition that Swift views as legalistic, insincere, and self-serving.
The consequence of following this interpretive tradition is that both the clergy (Peter) and the congregants (Martin and Jack) grow further and further removed from the actual will. As early as Chapter 2, the brothers have agreed to "lock up" the will "in a strong-box, brought out of Greece or Italy," which symbolizes the use of Greek or Latin texts rather than vernacular translations. Here, Swift recalls and criticizes the Catholic Church's long history of forbidding vernacular Bibles, thereby preventing many adherents from reading Scripture for themselves. By the time the brothers go their separate ways in Chapter 4, Peter has begun to interpose himself as the will's sole interpreter, deciding its meaning on behalf of the others and pronouncing his decisions ex cathedra (with papal authority; literally, "from the chair").
Clearly, Peter - (the Catholic Church) is not cast in a good light in A Tale of a Tub. That's not to say, however, that Swift viewed all reforms as equally salutary. Martin (moderate Protestantism) and Jack (Dissent) successfully obtain their own copy of the will, which gives them the all-important ability to read it for themselves and judge how well they are following it. In itself, Swift implies, vernacular access to the Bible is a good thing, but a person can still go overboard in relying on Scripture. To this end, Swift ridicules Jack in Chapter 11 for using his father's will as an umbrella, a nightcap, and a bandage—the implication being that the Bible should not be viewed as a universal guide to mundane matters, such as diet and health care. Swift's stance seems to be that the Bible is the ultimate authority on Church doctrine and discipline but that it is foolish to see it as a substitute for all earthly wisdom.
THREE BROTHERS :
Peter :
Peter is the oldest of the three brothers who feature in A Tale of a Tub. At first, he and his brothers get along well, but once they have established themselves in society, Peter's arrogance begins to shine through. He demands to be revered and obeyed by his brothers and eventually ejects them from their shared home. Several of Peter's characteristics, including his name and his relative age, point to his status as a symbol of the Roman Catholic Church.
Martin :
Martin is the middle-born of the three brothers. He initially respects and obliges his elder brother, Peter, despite the latter's increasingly strange behavior. When he is exiled and discovers that he has been disobeying his father's will, he takes careful but thorough steps to change his ways. His actions proceed from regard for what is right, not from hatred or resentment toward Peter. Named after Martin Luther, Martin represents what Swift viewed as the moderate Anglican tradition, avoiding the excesses the author ascribes to either Catholicism or Dissent.
Jack :
Jack is the youngest of the three brothers. After he is exiled by Peter, he becomes consumed by hatred for his oldest brother and does everything he can to distance himself from him. Several of Jack's behaviors, such as fervent preaching and dogged opposition to Peter in even trivial things, mark him as a caricature of Dissent.
TALE and TUB :
Jonathan Swift wrote A Tale of a Tub (published in 1704) not only to expound upon the hypocrisy of religion in early 18th century England, but to explore ideas about critics, oration, ancient and modern philosophies, digressions, and the nature of writing itself. These themes are all underscored with a satirical tone that takes religion, authors, and critics to task. The title refers to the tub that sailors used to toss out to distract whales from tipping their ships. The ship represents the status quo of the English government and its religious structure, while the whale is a symbol for the new ideas and controversies attempting to rock the ship: The government must keep dissent like Swift’s at bay.
Although it’s been suggested that Swift intended to write a piece that was supportive of Protestantism (he was a clergyman in the Church of England), the structure of the piece and the consistent use of satire made it seem like he was denouncing all religion. The Anglican Church disapproved of his treatise, as did the monarchy. Even though he avoided admitting authorship of the piece, many assumed he had written it and it stunted his rise in the Church.
The title also referred that Tale = government , Whale= Thomas Hobbs and Tub = Jonathan Swift. Whale is used for attacking on something.
Conclusion :
A Tale of a Tub takes its own winding, unique course to set up an allegory for the state of religion in the early 18th century. The reader learns about Swift’s satirical view of religion, as well as about the nature of critique, tangential thought, and writing itself.
Words count : 2600
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