A Tale Of A Tub

The narrator tells a story about three brothers who are each given a coat by their father on his deathbed. He tells them that the coat will grow with them. However, to keep their coats pristine and their future fortunes intact, they must follow the rules their father has set out for them. After seven years, they go to town to find wives. In doing so, they encounter all sorts of debauchery. At the same time, a new religion came into vogue where people worship an idol that manufactures human beings. This deity requires a great amount of animal sacrifice to be appeased: “The worshippers of this deity […] held the universe to be a large suit of clothes which invests everything” (51)—the earth, the air, and the stars. The narrator proposes that nature, religion, and love are some sort of adornment. Indeed, clothing can also define a job or position. For example, Lord Mayors dress differently than Bishops. There was also the idea of the “natural and celestial suit, which were the body and the soul; that the soul was the outward, and the body the inward clothing” (53). They cannot be separated either, because without the soul, the body is only a husk.