A tale of a tub- Jonathan Swift

A TALE OF A TUB

This blog is a response to the blog task given to us by Vaidehi Haryani ma’am as a classwork. In this blog I am going to explain the symbols used in the prose/ tragedy/ satire/ parody or an allegory ‘ The Tale of a Tub.’

Writer:

'A Tale of a Tub' is written by Johnathan swift. He belonged to the 18th century and was an Anglo- Irish satirist, poet and priest. He was known as a master of satire. Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry.

Brief Intro:

A tale of a tub was published in 1704, it has too many metaphors and so it becomes one of the masterly works of Swift. A Tale of a Tub might be written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind.

It was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, arguably his most difficult satire and perhaps his most masterly. Through this tale he is trying to point out the flaws in the all three branches of the Christian religion. This Tale’s primary focus is religion. It is a prose Parody (an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect). The tale consists of 'A preface', '11 sections' and 'a Conclusion'.

Plot in brief:

The main plot of A Tale of a Tub concerns three sons who inherit coats from their father with a command never to alter them. In youth, the brothers are committed to obeying their father's dying wish, but fashions change and they begin to feel left behind by polite society. They begin scrutinizing their father's will to see if there can be any justification for altering the coats after all. By twisting his words, they manage to rationalize the addition of decorative knots, then of gold lace, and eventually of numerous other decorations. Each time, they depart further and further from the obvious intent of their father's will, until eventually they are not even pretending to consult it. 

As stated before the ale uses a lot of metaphors. Here father, coats, will, brothers all these are used as a symbol to satire the religious practices of that time. And in this blog I am going to elaborate some of the metaphors used in the tale.

Symbols/ metaphors in the prose are:

Father	God
Three brothers	Three branches of Christainity
Will of the father	Bible
Coats	The religious practices
Tub	Digression
Whale	The one who attacks

Tub and Whale:

The tub- The word tub in the title refers to that sailors used to toss out to distract whales from tipping their ship. Here the ship represents the status of the English government and their religious structure and the whale refers to new ideas and controversies. Generally, when the sailors go for a voyage, it used to happen that whales attack them in the ocean and to safeguard themselves and to distract the whale sailors used to throw tubs in the water so that the whale moves to that direction and the ship remains safe. 

We can interpret this symbol in a way that the authorities always tosses a new topic or throws something in the air or brings out useless news so that the society gets distracted from the real news, the major news which can become a solid question of the working of the authorities. Here the whale symbolism to the public, the society and the tub tossed to district them is fake news. In this situation the Whale can be interpreted as the question raised by the society to the authorities for welfare. We can take a recent example, when the covid- 19 was spreading all around and numbers of cases were emerging in India. Our media was trying to distract people with the news of Sushant Singh Rajput's death making it a controversy of murder or death. This is my interpretation. The questions by people of the nation about the steps taken by authorities to safeguard them from the Covid- 19 virus works as a whale symbol which was ignored and everyone was driven towards a tub.

In the satire the Digression talks on various topics like critics, modernity, madness, readers, soul as well as the literary intentions. The digression is used to distract readers from understanding that the tale talks and criticizes the supreme authorities. So here we clarify the simple word like tub shows us very deep meaning like distraction and symbiosis to the digression used in the prose satire.

Will of the Father:

Will of the father is a symbol of the Bible in this tale. As we saw in the summary this tale is a satire to Christian religious practices. According to the tale the father wrote a will and gave 3 coats to his 3 sons. The will stated that no one among the three brothers can make any changes in the coats; it will bring misfortunes to them.

“Sons, because I have purchased no estate, nor was born to any, I have long considered of some good legacies to bequeath you, and at last, with much care as well as expense, have provided each of you (here they are) a new coat.  Now, you are to understand that these coats have two virtues contained in them; one is, that with good wearing they will last you fresh and sound as long as you live; the other is, that they will grow in the same proportion with your bodies, lengthening and widening of themselves, so as to be always fit.  Here, let me see them on you before I die.  So, very well!  Pray, children, wear them clean and brush them often.  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.  I have also commanded in my will that you should live together in one house like brethren and friends, for then you will be sure to thrive and not otherwise.”

All three brothers very faithfully followed the will but with time the fashion kept on changing they started getting corrupted from the surrounding influences and started to desire to look better and smart in the coats. Due to their desire they got driven towards making changes in the coats and slowly and steadily they started facing problems in their life. The Misfortunes attacked them. Will told them to stay together as brothers but time imbalance among them separated them.

Here simplifying the will and making changes in them brought misfortunes to brothers. Same way symbolizing the Bible, simplifying the bible and making its rules and regulations comfortable for living divided the Christian society into three divisions, which made them lose their brotherhood. They started fighting among them and this brought misfortune to whole Christian religion.

Coats & Three brother:

The coats are the main and central symbol in this tale. The coats were the only inheritance to three brothers from their father with some rules given to them. In the beginning they stuck to the rules very precisely. But with time with their understanding and facility they simplified the will made changes, alteration in the coats. Soon conflict began in their life. The eldest brother realized that he is right and has not done any harm to the coat as he was earning good in life. Younger two brothers realized their mistake and decided to change the coats by altering how they were looking before. Martin very precisely and safely removed the altering and the things which couldn't be removed without damaging the coat was left as it is. While Jack removed all the altering roughly and damaged the coat.

Here the coats symbolized three different Christian tradition. 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 represents Anglican church so his coat represents practices of Anglican church. He did not damage the coat and left it with some changes, which signifies that he changed the rule of the Bible for comfort of the society. While Jack the youngest one symbolized protestant. He damaged his coat in removing altering that signifies that all the rules and regulations of the bible are completely destroyed in the practices of the protestant. And the hate of Jack towards Peter also symbolizes the protest of protestants against Catholic church followers. 

Here I have explained two topics together in two points as they are interlinked with each other. I hope you were able to understand the point easily in this blog. I have also hyperlinked the blog of our faculty  for your better understanding. I am also embedding a summary video from the YouTube so that you can easily catch up with symbols given.

Thank you for visiting. I have purely written my understanding in the elaboration of symbols. If any queries or changes please drop a comment.

[words- 1542]