A Tale Of A Tub

The tub represents the diversion that sailors would throw out so that whales would not overturn their ships. Here, Swift suggests that the whale is representative of “Hobbes’s Leviathan, which tosses and plays with all other schemes of religion and government” (20). In this case, the whale is trying to destroy the steady ship of government and religion, and those in power are throwing out a diversion, but the whale keeps coming. Although “A Tale of a Tub” within the text would seem to be a diversion, it is designed as a commentary on the state of religion and government in England.

Peter, Martin, and Jack are not only symbolic of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Puritanism, they are also allegories for the Reformation. Once Martin and Jack leave Peter’s house, they are branching off and discovering their own ways of doing things. The coats help to show this, but so does their general departure. Throughout the story, they are constantly reinventing their concepts of what they believe, and Peter and Jack especially, become increasingly more extreme. Peter begins to reject music and art, and he develops a sect obsessed with inner vapor. The brothers’ separate beliefs cause many wars that underscore the hypocrisy of religion, which is supposed to espouse peace and love, but ends up causing endless strife. In fact, the brothers continue to fight, and their story never ends.

The coats symbolize religious doctrine. Each brother breaks the doctrine (otherwise known as their father’s will). They go against their father’s directions not to alter the coats by putting lace, buttons, and other bric-a-brac onto them. When Martin and Jack try to go back to their original coats, one brother attempts to preserve it as best he can, the other rends holes in it and has to sew them. This is representative of their deconstruction and reconstruction of religion. As Martin represents the Anglican Church and Jack the Puritans, perhaps their coats are also symbols of the trajectory of their religions. Protestants sought to subtly alter Catholicism, while Puritans wanted to alter the Christian faith more radically by reducing rituals and focusing on personal prayer. This might account for Jack’s more tattered coat.