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Summary
A Tale of a Tub (1704) is a satire in prose by Swift, the eighteenth century master of prose and a brilliant but erratic genius. It is generally regarded as the author's best work. Inform it is a religious allegory on the lines of the famous The Pilgrim's Progress. The title as the author explains in his preface, refers to a practice among seamen, who when they meet a whale on the sea, throw an empty tub to divert it from attacking the ship. Hence the title of the satire, which is intended to divert Hobb's Leviathan and the wits of the age from picking holes in the weak sides of religion and government."
The story is this: A father leaves a legacy of a coat to each of his three sons Peter, Martin and Jack with the direction that they should on no account alter or patch the coats. Peter stands for the Roman Catholic (St. Peter) Church, Martin for Martin Luther (hence Protestant Church) and Jack for dissenters (from Jack Colvin). The sons gradually disobey the injunction, and improve their coats according to the prevailing fashions of the times. Finally, they quarrel and separate from each others. The attack on Peter and Jack (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissenters) is fierce. Even Swift's own Church (Martin or Anglican Church) is riddled with the shots intended for the enemies. Thus the onslaught leaves all theologies in ruin. There is no fiercer satire in the language than this attack on Church. But the book widens its scope beyond that and becomes an ironic exposure of human follies and weaknesses, of intellectual pride and religious hypocrisy.
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| A Tale of a Tub |
Critical Analysis
As a critic has said, "Its unrelieved cynicism makes it oppressive reading. Besides Swift's philosophy of life, even Schopenhauer's seems comparatively cheerful. There is a far deeper pessimism in Swift's description of happiness as a perpetual possession of being well deceived than in the German thinker's definition of it as 'a condition of negative pain'. After all, why not be well deceived, says Swift in effect; even the mad man has its advantages and illusions are essential to our well-being and regard for our comfort." Irony cannot be deadlier than this. "The style is terse and has a sustained vigor, pace and colorfulness which Swift did not equal in his later works." (Albert).