• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1087-1101
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• 2009

The ongoing attempt to classify and categorize Jonathan Swift's literary work, A Tale of a Tub, as either satire or parody has not only opened issues concerning authorial intent and a present voice but also surfaced questions as to whether Swift identifies with what he is criticizing, thereby becoming the subject he schemes to destroy in his own literary work. In addressing these critical problems, my paper questions the boundaries of genre and analyzes the Tale, not within the conventional terms of literary genre, but by applying Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalistic impulse to Swift's Tale. Rather than focus on finding the author or identifying a voice within the text, Bakhtin's literary vision of carnivalization allows a means of subverting all rules yet holding the work together to present a shocking experience for the reader. Within the Tale, carnivalistic participation includes the reader who at one point is given the detached position of subjective spectator yet eventually decrowns the reader as both a carnivalistic participant and object of the same ridicule and derision once used to judge others. In conclusion, the Tale is revealed as a mocking commentary on the efforts of human beings/participants/writers to ignore the carnival aspects of existence and attempt to elevate themselves to the privileged role of spectator/reader.