What is Allegory?
The Oxford English dictionary defines allegory as ‘a story, picture, or other piece of art that uses symbols to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one.’ In its most simple and concise definition, an allegory is when a piece of visual or narrative media uses one thing to ‘Stand in for’ a different, Hidden idea. It's a little bit like an algebra equation, like y = 2x, but in the form of art. Like in algebra. When we talk about meaning in allegory, we have to talk about meaning in allegory, we have two different variables we’re thinking about, but we don't call them X and Y. Instead, we call them the tenor and a vehicle. A tenor is the hidden concept , object, idea or ulterior meaning; and the vehicle is the word, image, or narrative in the story that ‘Carries’ it.
In a piece of literature or work of art, the words or visual objects are never really the things themselves, but instead are the representations of something else. So in an allegory really about what's inherently in a text that we read, a movie we watch, or painting we look at? Or is it more about how we choose to engage with a text, a movie, or a piece of art? Allegory is fascinating because, in order for it to work, you as a reader need to approach the text as if it were an allegory! Sure, some works of art are more convincing or complete allegories than others, but when we think about what allegory actually is, It isn't just ‘a story, picture, or other piece of art that uses symbols to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one.’ Instead, allegory is the expectation and intention that we approach a piece of art as if it had a hidden or ulterior meaning.
Many such allegories are used in literature work. A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift is also a great religious allegory. A Tale of a Tub (1704), one of Swift's earliest satire works, is a religious allegory. The book exposes the quarrels of the churches in the famous story of three brothers, Peter (Roman Catholics), Martin (Anglicans) and Jack (Puritans). The target of satire in A Tale of a Tub is mainly the Roman Catholics represented by Martin, but the Puritans in the image of Jack can’t escape Swift’s sword either. Only to Anglicans is he tolerably mild. A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind. A satire on the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and English Dissenters, it was famously attacked for its profanity and irreligion, starting with William Wotton, who wrote that the Tale had made a game of "God and Religion, Truth and Moral Honesty, Learning and Industry" to show "at the bottom [the author's] contemptible Opinion of every Thing which is called Christianity." The work continued to be regarded as an attack on religion well into the nineteenth century. The Tale was enormously popular, presenting both a satire of religious excess and a parody of contemporary writing in literature, politics, theology, Biblical Exegesis, and medicine through its comically excessive front matter and series of digressions throughout. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. At the time it was written, politics and religion were still closely linked in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated.
Jonathan Swift's Tale of a tub is a brilliant failure. It is a prose satire intended as a defence of the Anglican church, but it was widely interpreted by contemporary readers as an attack on all religion. At the time of writing it, Swift was a junior Anglican clergyman hoping for substantial preference in the Church. The appearance of the Tale, and its assumed message, was a serious obstacle to his promotion.
One of the things that makes the Tale difficult to interpret for that the work attacks multiple things of things at the same time: it's an allegory about religious differences; it's a satire on pedantry and false scholarship; it's a parody of the contemporary book trade; it has attached to it two further treatises, the 'Battle of the Books', and the 'Mechanical Operation of the Spirit'. This essay will examine notions of authorship, intertextuality, originality, and the relationship between parody and allegory, and try to determine how all these components fit together.
Jonathan Swift tells us in a tale of a tub the story of the father who gives his 3 sons coats and gives them his will in which he noted details, instructions regarding the use of the coats. Here father stands for gods and sons; Peter, Martin and Jack represent three branches of Christianity.
And the will represents a word of god or the holy bible. The allegory represents history of the christian Church. Peter the elder son of the father represents the Roman Catholic Church. Martin represents the reformed church of the England, he makes several changes in the coat after Seven years. Jack represents the extremist sect of the protestants or the dissenters of puritans. The action of Peter in turning out his own and his brothers life his decision to have shoulder knots and silver frink on the coats and his medicine for various ill represents the corruption and harasses of the roman catholic church of England. By interpreting the Bible in their own way the Pope and his priest amast vast fortune and wealth and will their tremendous political powers. Martin’s attempts to remove the lace and the silver drinks from the coat very carefully represents the moderate reformation carried out in England. The violent manner in which Jack removes the decorations, almost tearing off the coat itself represents the excesses of the Puritans who almost destroyed the church and the state by precipitating the civil war and imposing Cromwell's autocratic rule in England. Swift thus brings out the moderate and reasonable position of the church of England between the extremes of the biogatory and corruption of the Roman Catholics and the destructive Enthusiasm of the dissenters and the Puritans.
Religious Orthodoxy:
Swift says in the 'Apology' that was added to the 1710 edition that A Tale of a Tub was partly intended to attack the religious groups that he saw as threatening the hegemony of the Anglican church. In the Tale, Swift uses the analogy of the three brothers - Martin, Peter and Jack - to represent, respectively, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, and the Low Church, or Dissenters. In doing so, he is trying to demonstrate that the spiritual practices of the Catholic Church and dissenting sects were based on a false interpretation of the true Word, the Bible. However, the sweep of Swift's irony in the book, and, the destabilising and confusing nature of its changes in satiric personae meant that many of his contemporaries read the Tale as an attack on all religion.
For a young Anglican churchman intent on a speedy ascension through the ranks of the church, this was a very damaging charge. Swift's decision to publish the apology in the revised edition of 1710 likely is related to his anxiety about his career at this time, and the Tale's potential to compromise his position. Late 1710, was perhaps the most exciting and promising time in Swift's career; he was being courted by the rising Tory leader Robert Harley to join the Tory cause, and power and importance seemed imminent. Swift was to believe for the rest of his life that his failure to secure the ecclesiastical promotions that he wanted was due to influential (including royal) disapproval of the perceived irreligious tendencies of A Tale of a Tub.
An important factor in the reception of Swift's work is that the narrator of the work is an extremist in every direction. Consequently, he can no more construct a sound allegory than he can finish his digressions without losing control (eventually confessing that he is insane). For a Church of England reader, the allegory of the brothers provides small comfort. Martin has a corrupted faith, one full of holes and still with ornaments on it. His only virtue is that he avoids the excesses of his brothers, but the original faith is lost to him. Readers of the Tale have picked up on this unsatisfactory resolution to both "parts" of the book, and A Tale of a Tub has often been offered up as evidence of Swift's misanthropy
Conclusion:
One of the great themes that Swift explores in A Tale of a Tub is the madness of pride involved in believing one’s own age to be supreme and the inferiority of derivative works. One of the attacks in the tale was on those who believe that being readers of works makes them the equals of the creators of works.
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