A Tale Of A Tub

Although Swift didn’t want to admit that he wrote A Tale of a Tub because he didn’t want to hurt his career advancement as an Anglican clergyman, many knew that he was the author. Despite the guise of a narrator, Swift’s  voice is the one responsible for the arguments in the treatise, the many tangents, and the satiric tone. He uses the book to highlight differences between three Christian faiths: Catholicism, Protestantism (or Anglicanism), and Puritanism. He also uses allusion, metaphor, symbols, and allegory to explore the hypocrisy of these religions. He uses “digressions” to analyze the state of scholarship and critique, to compare ancient ideas to modern ones, as well as to discuss the meaning of digressions and the roles of writers. Swift employs his skills of observation and storytelling, nuanced by his specific satirical and unsparing sense of humor, to guide readers through a varied exploration of the religious, literary, and political worlds in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.