A Tale of a Tub tells of three sons named Peter, Jack, and Martin whose father has

recently died. Their sole inheritances are simple but well-made coats, which their
father has asked that they enjoy and carefully preserve for all of their days. Their
fathers will is filled with instructions on how to care for the coats and rules about
what his sons may or may not do with their coats. The brothers carefully maintain
their coats for seven years until they fall in love with three royal women named
Money, Pride, and Ambition. They then begin to resent the plainness of their coats,
certain that more ornate, stylish apparel will help them gain the ladies favor. They
are aware that the will strictly forbids any addition to the coats, but they so badly
want to conform to the styles of the period that they twist and reinterpret the words
of the will in such a ridiculous way as to allow exactly the practices that their
father had warned them against. This first violation sets the stage for the brothers
to consistently disregard their fathers will whenever it contradicts their own
desires.9
This beginning to Swifts Tale sets up a very thin allegory for the history of
the Christian church. The father represents Christ, the will is the Bible, the coats
are Christian faith, and each son represents one major branch of the Christian
church following the Reformation. Peter represents the apostle Peter, and therefore
the Catholic Church; Jack is named for John Calvin and represents Puritanism; and
Martin represents Martin Luther and the Anglican Church, as Swift considered
Luther the Father of the English Reformation.10
What is notable about the beginning of A Tale of a Tub is the way in which all
three men fall into error together. There is not one particular brother who deviates
from the fathers will first. In fact, the brothers are not even called by individual
names during this first chapter of the satire. All three of the brothers are seduced by
society to a point where, Resolved, therefore, at all hazards to comply with the
modes of the world, they concerted matters together, and agreed unanimously to
lock up their fathers will in a strong-boxand trouble themselves no father to
examine it.11 Swift argues here that the initial deviation from the teachings of the
Bible was a unanimous and simultaneous act by all three parties. The brothers
human passions, represented by their lust for the ladies Money, Pride, and
Ambition, as well as their desire to fit in with societal standards of dress, win out
over their desire to follow their fathers will. The problem is not with the will
itself, or with the wisdom of their deceased fathers instructions, but rather with the
brothers and the way in which they abuse their coats. In other words, the perceived

problems of religion are the result of humans prioritizing worldly things over the
will of God, while still claiming authority in the church. Since human depravity is
at fault, there is no reason to believe that the will is an inadequate basis for faith. In
the opening chapter of his satire, Swifts message to readers is that the selfinterested stage-priests who were the public face of the early eighteenth-century
religious scene in England were not representative of the true message of
Christianity.12
As the Tale continues, Peter assumes power over the kingdom, pushing his
brothers out of public view. He earns the respect of his constituents but quickly
begins to abuse his power by deceiving his people. This deception is most blatant
when Peter feeds his subjects bread crusts, all the while insisting that they are
actually sumptuous cuts of meat. When two of his subjects protest this absurd
disparity, he exclaims, it is true, good, natural mutton as any in Leadenhall
Market; and God confound you both eternally if you offer to believe otherwise!13
Peter wants to maintain control over his people without carrying out his real duties.
When his subjects protest that they have not received what was promised, Peters
absolute power is brought into question, and he resorts to threats of divine
judgment.
This portion of the tale is Swifts allegory of what he sees as corruption in the
contemporary Catholic Church. Peters rise to power over the kingdom is meant to
suggest that the Catholic Church had become allied with state power.14 Swift also
intends for us to link Peters threats to his insubordinate subjects with the violent
suppression of heresy during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, exemplified
by the Spanish Inquisition and the reign of Bloody Queen Mary of England. Swift
believes that by refusing to tolerate any dissenting views, Peter, and the eighteenthcentury Catholic Church by analogy, pretends to excessive authority.
Peters desire to keep power for himself fosters his belief that he is capable of
taking over responsibilities that belong to God. As a result, his subjects are
misinformed and mistreated. The Bible, represented by the fathers will, is ignored.
Though his fathers original message to Peter has not changedjust as Christs
initial instructions to the church remain the samepeoples pride and inadequacies
lead them to corrupt or ignore the instructions they have been given. Swift thought
it was important to convey to the English public that the mistreatment of the people
by the church is by no means part of pure faith or a true following of the
scriptures.

A little later in the Tale, Jack also begins to depart further from the desires of
his father. When he and Martin discover that Peter is acting self-interestedly, they
decide to seek their fathers wisdom, so they find his will and begin to read it
again. As they read, they realize how much the gaudiness of their coats has
deviated from their original instructions on how to care for them. They commit to
removing the decorations and living in alignment with their fathers will. Martin
gently removes each ornament from his coat. Jack, however, exclaims, Ah! My
good brother Martin do as I do, for the love of God; strip, tear, pull, rend, flay
off all that we may appear as unlike that rogue Peter as possible.15 He furiously
tears off the ornaments so that the coat is torn to shreds in the process. In his
attempt to follow his father by disassociating himself from his wayward brother,
Jack destroys what his father has left to him.16
In Swifts story, Jacks fall from obedience mirrors the development of
Puritanism in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. In an effort to show his
dissatisfaction with the practices of the Catholic and Anglican Churches, Jack
attempts to pursue an ascetic way of life in opposition to his brothers excesses. His
zeal for reform and obedience drives him toward legalism, where his dogged
commitment to following the instructions in his fathers will turns his focus to
following rules rather than following God.17 In the process, he neglects Christs
commandments to love his brother and to correct him gently, rather than with
furious passion. Like Peter, Jack allows his excessive zeal to take precedence over
the real message of the will. The problems that result from his behavior are of his
own creation and a result of his human failures; they do not come from any fault or
failing of the will. At the time A Tale of a Tub was published, there were still many
Christians in England who chose to adhere to a Puritanical lifestyle. By using Jack
to show the legalism and lack of charity that often result from such a lifestyle,
Swift wanted to counteract the alienation that the common people felt toward these
zealots who claimed to have a true knowledge of God.
Though Swift presents the third brother, Martin, as the most docile and
levelheaded of the three brothers, he does not exempt him from an exposure of his
imperfections. When Martin and Jack leave Peter, Martin gains popularity for
decrying Peters practice of selling his subjects expensiveand ineffective
remedies for various maladies. Martin soon becomes recognized as an advocate for
Peters subjects; as part of this advocacy, Martin agrees to do what Peter would
not: he performs second marriages for Peters subjects who want to practice

polygamy. Martin gains a large following of people who want to participate in this
practice, and many of Peters former subjects decide to submit to Martins rule
instead. As time goes on, Martin accrues considerable power and gains both
constituents and land.18 According to Swift, Martins flaw is his moral flexibility
his willingness to compromise. He is all too ready to bend the standards of
morality that call for monogamy in order to satisfy his potential followers.
Martins objection to Peters sale of remedies parallels Martin Luthers
sixteenth-century campaign against the Catholic Churchs sale of indulgences,19
which was a major factor in the start of the Protestant Reformation. Similarly,
Swift uses Martins willingness to perform polygamous marriages to represent the
birth of the Anglican Church in 1534 because its split from the Catholic Church
was prompted in large part by King Henry VIIIs demand for a divorce that would
allow him to marry another woman.20 The newly-formed Anglican Church granted
him the divorce that the Catholic Church had refused to give him. Swift saw this
willingness to compromise the standards of the church in the face of political
pressures as a deviation from scriptures instructions to stand firm21 in the faith
and to not be conformed to this world.22 Martins desire to avoid conflict and his
fear of worldly institutions, along with his desire to gain subjects and land of his
own, take precedence over the principles that he once upheld. This part of the tale
carried the most personal risk for Swift. In attacking the Anglican Churchs
political character, he was taking on the flaws of his own institution.
After his satire was published, Swift faced major backlash from a number of
powerful figures within the church. He was accused of blasphemy and prevented
from ever holding higher stations within the Anglican Church.23 Nevertheless,
Swift refused to retreat from his original purpose of exposing the abuses of religion
to help his readers gain an understanding of the true meaning of Christian
teachings. This is made clear in the Apology he published with the fifth edition
of A Tale of a Tub, where he declares that, The abuses of Religion, he proposed to
set forth and states that, It is manifest by the reception the following discourse
hath met with, that those who approve it, are a great majority among the men of
taste.24 In these lines, Swift communicates both the firmness of his mission and
his respect for his target audience, the common people among whom A Tale of a
Tub was incredibly popular. Though Swifts career in the Anglican Church never
recovered from the damage it received after the publication of his piece, A Tale of
a Tub was widely circulated and enjoyed.

Jonathan Swift was clearly a man burdened by the threat that Christian
hypocrisy posed to the spread of the true Gospel. Seeing that the general public of
England was estranged from church leaders and clergy, Swift risked his personal
security to reach the people with the message that human failure does not negate
Christs message. This concept remains significant today, as Christianity is
commonly rejected because of Christians natural inability to adequately represent
Jesus. Furthermore, the efforts of Swift and others like him helped to eliminate
many of the abuses that he addressed in A Tale of a Tub. The churches as Swift
knew them have undergone significant change and reform from within as
Christians acknowledge their failings and seek to follow the will of God.
Ultimately, true Christianity sweeps past the boundaries of human error, honestly
acknowledging that man is imperfect and looking instead to the excellence of
Christ for deliverance.