This blog is Assignment writing on paper no-102( Literature of the Neo classical age) assigned by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
Name: Gayatri Nimavat
Paper: Literature of the Neo classical age
Roll no: 09
Enrollment no: 4069206420220019
Email ID: gayatrinimavat128@gmail.com
Batch: 2022-24 (MA Semester - 1)
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English,Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Thematic study of 'A Tale of a Tub' and the study of Bollywood movies based on these themes
"Books ... have no more than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out ... and return no more"
Introduction:
A Tale of a Tub is Swift's first important prose work. It was written during the 1690s, when Swift was living with his patron Sir William Temple, and it was published in 1704. It is a prose satire intended as a defence of the Anglican church, but it was widely interpreted by contemporary readers as an attack on all religion.
About Author:
Thematic study:
1 Religious Orthodoxy:
A Tale of a Tub was partly intended to attack the religious groups that he saw as threatening the hegemony of the Anglican church. In the Tale, Swift uses the analogy of the three brothers - Martin, Peter and Jack - to represent, respectively, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, and the Low Church, or Dissenters. In the narrative portions of A Tale of a Tub, Swift makes a claim about the true practice of Christianity by satirizing the various false alternatives. In altering their coats and deviating from their father's will, the three brothers in the story to various degrees are rejecting the Bible as the overarching guide to church doctrine and discipline.
Peter: Roman catholic Church
Martin: Anglican Church
Jack: Protestant church or Dissenters
Father: God
The Will of Father: Bible
Three coats: Three Religions Practices
Peter, the brother who represents the Catholic tradition, initiates most of the changes the three brothers make to their coats.
Swift writes more admiringly of Martin, who represents Martin Luther and by extension the mainline Protestant tradition that Luther is credited with founding.
Jack is as those of Calvinism and its successors reforms even more enthusiastically than Martin's.
2 True Christianity Adheres to the Bible:
In 'A Tale of a Tub' Jonathan Swift says to stick to true christianity to the bible. Through these three characters, Peter, Martin, and Jack, Swift depicts the Bible of Christianity and its changes over time. Swift satirizes these changes.The father gave them coats and asked him not to make any changes in it, but these three brothers went against the will of his father and made changes in the coats.
By this description, Swift wants to say that the doctrines spoken by God in today's time, which are presented by the Bible. People and churches change it over time. By portraying these changes as very evil, Swift suggests that the Brethren are discrediting themselves with every step they take from the authority of Scripture.
Peter's main doctrinal error, as presented by Swift, is his insistence that he can exercise a teaching authority on par with the Bible, that his pronouncements can rival, modify, or even displace what is plainly stated in Scripture.
Martin, who represents Martin Luther, The Lutheran tradition holds to a principle known as "sola scriptura", meaning that the Bible is the only infallible authority by which Christian doctrines and practices can be justified.
Since Swift seems to praise the sola scriptura viewpoint, one might expect him to endorse Jack's reforms even more enthusiastically than Martin's. Swift argues that there are limits to how much and how exclusively a Christian should rely on Scripture. He specifically mocks Jack for using his father's will not only as a guide to moral conduct and religious practices, but as a nightcap, an umbrella, a bandage, and even a kind of medicine.
3 Problems of the Modern Author:
Largely absent from the main body of A Tale of a Tub but constantly on display in the "Digressions" is a lament about the peculiar problems facing modern society and, in particular, modern writers. On the surface, Swift's attitude toward his plight and that of his fellow moderns contains amusement, even disdain. Underneath the breezy Enlightenment prose, however, are some real issues that writers and thinkers of Swift's era had to confront. The problems of modernity, meaning, for Swift, early modernity, are ones with which anyone living in the 21st century is still familiar, too much information, too many choices, and a general sense that there is "nothing new under the sun."
4 The Hypocrisy of Figureheads in 18th Century England:
In A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift addresses the hypocrisy of Christians who abused religion, however he affirmed that the purity of the Gospel itself remained inspite of the hypocritical followers. Swift wrote this satire to demonstrate that corrupt doctrines and hypocritical behavior within all major branches of the church caused a growing disillusionment with Christianity. He exposed the faults of the church because he believed that the church was accountable for presenting an authentic, biblical account of the Christian faith.
5 Ancient vs Modern:
The Tale is self-consciously digressive, and attacks the modern writers unmindful of the past and obsessed with the idea of being up to the moment. The narrator of the Tale is fatuously scrupulous in recording this contemporaneity by recording the most trivial domestic circumstances and everything that enters his head at the moment of writing, including his thoughts on the writing of his thoughts. In drawing attention to its newness, A Tale of a Tub parodies the novelty associated with the romance and early novel, always presenting new scenes and "surprising adventures".
Swift also satirises contemporary developments in the book trade: the expanding commercialism of the literary marketplace, and the hybrid forms of scholarship, history, and pamphlet that it was spawning. The Tale is just such a hybrid. And it makes a nonsense of typographical innovation, the random and pointless use of asterisks, hyphens, and parentheses gesture towards an over-excited print culture whose sense of literary merit has got lost in new and various forms of textual egotism.
6 Parody and Allegory:
A Tale of a Tub's more obvious satire is that on abuses in religion. The satire works through the allegory of the three brothers: Martin, Peter, and Jack. Martin symbolises the Anglican Church (from Martin Luther); Peter symbolizes the Roman Catholic Church; and Jack (from John Calvin) symbolises the Dissenters. Their father leaves each brother a coat as a legacy, with strict orders that the coats are on no account to be altered. The sons gradually disobey his injunction, finding excuses for adding shoulder knots or gold lace, according to the prevailing fashion. Martin and Jack quarrel with the arrogant Peter (the Reformation), and then with each other (the split between Anglicanism and Puritanism), and then separate. As we might expect, Martin is by far the most moderate of the three, and his speech in section six is by the sanest thing anyone has to say in the Tale.
Both parody and allegory work by implicitly, or explicitly, comparing one sort of book with another. As a broad generalisation, they are concerned with intertextual relationships, and how you can use one text to invoke or critique another. But the distinction is that allegory teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise truth, while parody teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise error.
7 Originality:
The idea of originality is vexed by A Tale of a Tub. Ambiguous and contradictory concerns are is mirrored within the text, which in some ways it seems to push the boundaries of what can be called an original. A Tale of a Tub is profoundly postmodern in its intertextuality, its play with literary forms, and its changes in speaker and genre and that constantly undermine readerly expectations of the text. It parodies bookseller's catalogues, scholarly treatises, scientific works, effusive dedicatory prose, and it borrows, magpie-like, from a wide and disparate range of sources. A Tale of a Tub is a patchwork of unattributed quotations to Dryden, Marvell, Richard Bentley, Thomas Browne, and Joseph Addison.
Study of Bollywood movies:
There are so many movies based on these types of themes.
Achhut Kanya:
Achhut Kanya was progressive both for its time and the present. The movie questions the inherent injustice in the caste system through the tragic love story of Kasturi and Pratap. Caste doesn’t come in the way of their friendship, but rears its ugly head when it comes to the question of their marriage.
Aarkashan:
This movie is showing the casticism of India. Protagonist Deepak Kumar (Saif Ali Khan) is a bright but low caste student, who seeks entry into a top-notch private university. A respected college principal is sacked after publically backing the Supreme Court's decision to grant educational opportunities to underprivileged children. He fights back by teaching small groups of disadvantaged children at a local cowshed.
Dharm:
Singh has also written the screenplay for the movie which again can only be called a class apart, and undeniably outstanding. In today’s world of “excess drama” and “the louder the better” mantra, DHARM once again ranks completely aside as a film which lets its everyday, realistic turn of events speak louder than any over-the-top melodrama can.
Diksha:
This movie portrays the mindset of the people living in the countryside of India.This movie depicts the fountains of hope and optimism that would one day bring back life to the then Indian society which was shackled by the caste structure. On the one hand we have a guru(teacher) who wants to break out of the rigid caste system,but fears that he may annoy the other higher castes. In the end this torch is picked up by one of his ex students who defies society and speaks out against the rigid caste system.
My Name is Khan:
This movie introduces us to a global, multicultural theme from the perspective of an innocent Muslim in the horror of the post-9/11 United States. Victimized for being autistic in his native India, Rizvan Khan also faces the perennial violence and hate generated by the anti-Muslim pogroms there. While an impressionable child, his mother, Razia Khan, teaches him a very profound ethical lesson - that irrespective of caste, class, race, religion, or ethnicity, there are only two kinds of people, good ones who do good deeds, and bad ones who do bad deeds. This film is quite effective in portraying the plight of the Muslim community and would be appropriate for use in introductory courses on terrorism, race and ethnicity, sociology, and criminology. The dominant stereotypical narratives blame Islam and all Muslims for terrorism. The enhanced power of the state, without proper checks, is shown to lead to gross violations of the rights of the Muslim community. The film is very effective in showing that love, tolerance, and patience can overcome the hate, fear, and ignorance to which a society succumbs, and acts as an effective antidote to prejudice.
PK:
PK tells the story of an alien who lands in India and ends up questioning religious dogma and traditions.
Here the protagonist too says that he keeps on trying, following the customs and ways to find God, though here he seems to have lost his patience as he desperately asks God ‘Where he is’. An innate component of this religious ethos is the presence of a deep rooted cult of ‘godmen’ in Indian society, which encompasses various faiths and cultural practices. ‘Religion’ can be seen as a medium in itself; it is sometimes considered to form a channel between the self and God that consists of a set of institutions, authorities and practices, such as churches, holy texts and preachers.
OMG:
The movie is commendable for entering sensitive territory. It takes some guts on the part of the directors and producers Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal, to point out certain religious beliefs that people hold on to, question them and show a uniquely reasonable perspective towards God. It looks at the God-devotee relationship as a friendship, rather than the master-slave way it has evolved into. This movie could have invoked massive retort from various political and religious quarters, but looks like sometimes these folks can take a joke or two and not get offended. Actually, that’s the true triumph of the film. It takes on interesting issues and turns the very act of being religious on its head. It tries to show a mirror to the society when it comes to the various radical and fanatical forms of worship and religion. It tells us how religion has become a business!" writes Reza Noorani, Bollywood Life. "Kudos to director Umesh Shukla and his entire cast and crew and those behind the scenes for illustrating the pointlessness of all religious beliefs and driving the message straight to the heart.
TV serial 'Tamas':
The film is based on the book by Brisham Sahni, himself a refugee to India from West Punjab, now in Pakistan. Thus fittingly, this epic looks at Partition from an Indian Punjabi perspective, as the fate of Sikh and Hindu families in West Punjab is emphasized. The first part also underscores the Muslim viewpoint: the provocations they suffered from Sikhs and especially Hindus, and their ultimate supremacy in the West Punjab, which became the heart of Pakistan. The "Darkness" of those times of religious intolerance and civil war highlights two stories of refugee families, one Sikh and the other Hindu. These victims of hate and their Muslim counterparts had, until 1947, been brothers and co-existed for over a thousand years throughout the Indian subcontinent. With "modern freedom", the lands of this once "one people" was partitioned into Muslim, and Hindu republics. Non-Muslim religious groups, however (Sikhs, Christians, and many Muslims - as many as in all in Pakistan), migrated to the new India. Pakistan became, "de facto", exclusively Muslim.
Conclusion:
In a nut shell, A Tale of a Tub is a great work of satire which must be taken very seriously even after over three hundred years when it first published as it sheds light onto how members of clergy in any society usurp political power and undermine people's religious feelings. Swift saw this threat and was burdened with the responsibility to fight against the Christian hypocrisy created by the Catholic Church and the endless zeal of the dissenters that posed as an obstacle for the spread of the true Gospel. He risked the security of his own career to inform Christians that human weaknesses do not annihilate Christ's message, because he realized that an ever growing body of English Christians was becoming estranged from the church. Although it took quite some time for people to realize the core of Swift's intended message in the work, this work led to English Christians' acceptance of their own moral shortcomings when their practice of religion was concerned.
References:
Course Hero. "A Tale of a Tub Study Guide." Course Hero. 6 Dec. 2019. Web. 6 Oct. 2022. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/A-Tale-of-a-Tub/>.
Quintana, Ricardo. "Jonathan Swift". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jonathan-Swift. Accessed 10 October 2022.
William, Abigail, Kate O'Connor. 'A Tale of a Tub', Jonathan Swift http://writersinspire.org/content/jonathan-swift-tale-tub. Published on 04 july 2012. Accessed on 06 October 2022.
Word count: 2820
Images: 15
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